Oundle School’s U14 netballers were recently undefeated in the County championships and go through to the regionals to take place in January 2016.
Captain, Mia Stanton (13) commented, “Coming into the tournament we were all very excited but also very nervous as we had only had three training sessions together beforehand.”
After a good warm up, Oundle’s first match was against Campion who started off quite fast but Oundle soon found their rhythm securing a 10-4 victory. The next match was against Northampton High School (NHS) which was tight at half time but after a team talk and change in attack, resulted in the girls winning 12-6.
Mia added, “Our next match was against Wellingborough, who seemed a very good team after watching them in their previous match. We played extremely well minimising our errors. We spotted their centre was extremely good, and Poppy Chatterton (14), who was playing centre at the time, tried to cut her out of the game. At half time we had a good lead but there was still a chance they could catch up.”
In the second half of the match against Wellingborough, Oundle had not lost momentum, and shooters, Sienna Rushton (13) and Amy Ratcliffe (13), looked like they had been playing together for years securing a 15-2 victory. The subsequent game against Quentin resulted in another victory, 13-4 and the girls went on to beat Pitsford, 14-5.
Mia concluded, “In the semi-finals our attack and defence did brilliantly scoring 17 goals and only letting in 3. Taking us through to the Finals – another match against NHS. We definitely didn’t play our best but we tried hard, which secured us a 12-5 win, leaving us undefeated and the U14 County Cup winners.”
Coach Mrs Washington is very excited with the potential this team demonstrated during the tournament, and is looking forward to working with them in the Easter Quarter.
Head of Netball, Mrs Bev Burnham, “This team has shown great maturity after only being together for a few weeks; the future is definitely bright for the Netball Club.”
Player of the tournament: Sienna Rushton (GA and GS)
Team: Emily Horrocks-Taylor, Ella McCluskey, Mia Stanton, Poppy Chatterton, Amy Ratcliffe, Sienna Rushton, Ziyana Bayoneted, Orla McMenamin, Polly Brown and Catherine Swanston.