Netball

The A Netball Team attended the National Secondary School Championships in Napier in October and their fourth placing was the best result ever for a Craighead team.  The win was even more impressive as the tournament had been increased from twelve to sixteen teams, five from the South Island.

The Craighead team began the tournament with a patchy win over Sacred Heart New Plymouth and then played some very good netball to beat Epsom Girls’ Grammar 32/ 28.  The next game against Wellington East was again, not their best netball with the team being behind for most of the game.  The girls could not let Wellington win if Craighead was still to make it through to the top eight. Going into the final quarter six goals down, they played brilliant netball to claw the game back and win by one.  Not a good game for the twenty spectators we had at the tournament.

The team had a good game in the afternoon defeating Palmerston North Girls’ High comfortably.  Waimea College, from Nelson, was their next game and Craighead once again were winning comfortably, but through some wrong choices let Waimea back in and Craighead won the game by only three goals.

Their next game was against Tu Toa from Palmerston North (a correspondence school, set up for netballers), for a place in the final. Craighead stayed with Tu Toa but a couple of mistakes saw Tu Toa slip ahead to a five goal lead at the end of the first quarter.  Captain Dana Mulcahy was introduced to the game and the difference was still five at half time and four by the end of the third quarter, with the girls two down at one stage.  The physicality of the game began to tell on the players in the fourth quarter and Tu Toa pulled ahead to win 38/27.  Tu Toa went on to win the tournament, defeating Mt Albert Grammar by one goal. 

Craighead’s final game was the third/fourth play-off against Epsom Girls Grammar.  Epsom definitely pulled out their A game which our girls found difficult to stop and with their goal attack shooting accurately, Craighead went down by eleven goals finishing the tournament a credible fourth.  Alice Eddington was named in the tournament team, as she was at South Island Championships.

The girls can be very proud of their performance this season.  We wish Chloe Austin and Kate McFarlane all the best for next year.

Team—Cara Adolph, Chloe Austin, Kayley Coles, Emily Coughlan,  Alice Eddington, Georgia Greig, Jessica Jackson-White, Georgina McFarlane (Vice Captain), Kate McFarlane, Georgia McRae, Dana Mulcahy (Captain).  Coach—Barry Tucker, Manager—Gill Handy, Primary Care—Donna Hardie, Physiotherapist—Simone Greig