The Netball Report - Regional Schools Tournament

On Saturday 29th January QEGS’ U16 Netball Team travelled to Oundle in Northamptonshire to represent Lincolnshire at the Regional Schools Netball Tournament.

The tournament is organised for the top two teams in each of the East Midlands counties of Lincolnshire, Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire, Leicestershire and Northamptonshire who all had to qualify from their respective county’s tournament before Christmas. The ten teams were then split into two groups of five, so it was the luck of the draw who you faced on the day.

The first match of the day was against Oakham who was coached by Lauren Nicholls (England/Superleague player), but unfortunately, they were much stronger than us and although we lost, we fought hard and managed to get half score (16-9).

The second match was a much easier one against Chellaston Academy. QEGS were able to dominate in both attack and defence and comfortably won 13-6.
The third match of the day was against Nottingham Girls High School. This was a closely contested match resulting in a 10-7 win to QEGS.

The final match in our group was Sponne Academy; we had both lost to Oakham and had both beaten the other two teams in our group, so whoever won this game would go onto the semi-finals. We started well and at half time were leading 5-2, but unfortunately the second half didn’t go as well and we ended up losing 7-10, meaning that Sponne Academy finished second in our group and went through to the semi-finals and QEGS finished in third place.

Although we were bitterly disappointed that we hadn’t reached the semi-finals we were very proud that a small school in rural Lincolnshire was competing with all the big city schools and private schools on such a big stage.

Our final match of the day saw us face Oundle School who had finished third in their group, so this match was to decide fifth and sixth place. The first half was goal for goal, with any mistakes by either team not being capitalized upon. Half time score of 3-3 meant it was all to play for in the second half. The second half again went goal for goal and the game swung one way and then the other, unfortunately finishing 10-9 in Oundle’s favour.

Well done to the nine girls (five Year 11 and five Year 10) who won the Coastal and Wolds Tournament in October, who then went on to win the Lincolnshire Tournament in November and finished a creditable sixth place in the Regional East Midlands U16 Schools Tournament.

Match report by Mrs Blackburn