On Wednesday 4th December our Year 11 Netball squadheaded to Erne integrated College for their annual Blitz. There were 6 schools in attendance this year – St Fanchea’s College, Erne Integrated College, St Kevin’s College, Mount Lourdes, Devenish College and ourselves.
Each school played each other in a Round Robin tournamentwith games lasting 10 minutes one way. The victor emergedas the team with the most points accrued by the end of the Tournament.
Our first match was against Mount Lourdes. A very tough start for the first competitive match the team had played since last year’s season in the Northern Ireland League. The girls were very slow to start, almost shell-shocked against this well-oiled and drilled Mount Lourdes team. Despite their best efforts in defence, Edeline Andrich and Gemma Storey just couldn’t prevent Mount Lourdes from scoring. Result 11-1Mount Lourdes.
The next match was against Devenish College. With one match under their belts, the team settled and began to play their own style of Netball. Dominating the opening 5 minutes with super shooting from both Lauren Booth and Niamh Johnston, the girls gained confidence. We were able to switch the team round a little to ensure that other members of the 14 strong squad had the opportunity to play. On came Jessica Johnston, Edith Mitten, Kate McGarry and Rachel Clarke. Excellent defensive work from Edeline and centre court play from Scarlett Keys and Rachel Mullan enabled us to prevent many scores from our opposition and increase our own scoreline. Result 9-0 to ERGS.
Our third match was against St Kevin’s, Lisnaskea. This was a side to be reckoned with as usual. The St Kevin’s side attacked from the start racking up a very quick 3 goals in succession. Although this rattled the girls, they were by no mean deterred. Super play again from Gemma and Edeline in defence to get the ball distributed out of our defensive third into the centre to Jessica Hogg, Rachel and Scarlett. Between these three, the ball was fired up to Niamh and Lauren in the shooting circle where they took all the possibilities given to them and got the score back to 3-3. Then it was like a game of Ping-pong. The teams were back and forth on the court, shooting and missing, shooting and scoring… final result, 5-4 to ERGS.
Match number four was against St Fanchea’s. Having seen them playing the other teams, the girls knew they had another tough match to play. The game was quite even with this ping-pong style happening again. 1-0 to ERGS, 1-1, 2-1 ERGS, 2-2 and so on. Shaking themselves down and encouraged from the side by their teammates, the fluidity returned and St Fanchea’s got a little rattled. The girls pulled away a little, but never by enough to enable them to relax. Final score, 7-4 ERGS.
Finally, the last match – Erne Integrated, the Blitz hosts. This team had been gradually improving throughout the tournament and were certainly not to be taken lightly. ERGS girls knew that if they won this match, they would be in line for the silver medals, if they lost – it could be bronze. All to play for. From the start, the attack was on. Lovely play to get the ball straight into the circle for Lauren to put away goal number one. Then came a patch of scrappier play, were it was hard to circulate the ball cleanly. Managing to work through this, the girls found their groove again and started to play more comfortably. The goals began to go in and I decided tochange the team round again. Time for Ella Archer, Kirsty Wood, and Darcey Pancott to get some court time. The girls continued to play well together, despite this shake-up (a testament to their teamwork abilities), distributing the ball wisely and expertly into our shooting circle. Result 8-1 ERGS.
A super day was had by all and our girls came away with Silver medals!
Well done to all the girls for their hard work today and thesewell-earned Medals.
1st place – Mount Lourdes, Enniskillen
2nd place – Enniskillen Royal Grammar School
3rd place – St Kevin’s, Lisnaskea
