Netball U11s finals at Dulwich College Suzhou

On Saturday 25th the U11s Netball squad travelled to Suzhou to play in their finals tournament. It was a day of great excitement; a real rollercoaster of emotions as the girls played with every ounce of energy they had! The first game was extremely hard for the girls, both technically and from a fitness perspective, since the opposition were physically stronger and technically more capable than them. This resulted in a valiant and closely-fought loss to BISS Puxi. The opposition held the lead throughout both halves of the match, despite our defenders, Konstanze and Kayleigh moving, stretching and jumping in all directions. Our mid-court team members and shooters were also fantastic at intercepting and we were able to secure 4 goals in the match. Little did we know that this tough but close loss would play a key part later on in the day. The following two games were a real high point for the entire team. We played exceptionally well against two evenly matched teams in NAIS and Dulwich 4. We won both games, thanks to some superb defending from Konstanze, as well as our focused mid-court team with Dior as WA, Grace as C and Seren as GA. Kayleigh switched into GS and during the two matches the shooting team secured 13 and 11 goals respectively. At this stage, we were well on the way to achieving a solid finishing position in the tournament and morale was high. The last two games required the girls to dig deep and find their last reserves of energy to defend against Dulwich College 1 who were faster and more accurate on the court, followed by an extremely tight game against the Dulwich College second team, which we won by a single goal. During both matches, against two very different Dulwich teams, the girls did the school proud. Their attitude towards the other teams, the umpires and the tournament hosts was admirably sporting and absolutely fantastic to see. We had a hugely enjoyable tournament overall, finishing 4th and only narrowly missing out on 3rd place due to our loss against BISS Puxi – had we won that game we would have scooped a trophy. Fortunately, there is always Beijing! Konstanze received the tournament’s most valuable player award where she was chosen by all of the other schools for her performance on the day. This is a real achievement for her and I am so pleased to see that her hard work and dedication to the team has paid off. I would like to thank all of the girls and supporting parents for a fantastic season, your support means everything. Finally, I want to thank Seren, the team’s captain. She never fails to show true leadership and commitment to her team and her role. She inspires the girls to do their absolute best and she never, ever gives up.