In the first week of the school holidays the 9A netball team headed up to Christchurch to compete in the Junior South Island Secondary School’s Netball Tournament.

We had to leave earlier than planned due to the forecast snow in the Lindis and the Pig Route, meaning one extra night on the trip, in Oamaru. On Monday we had our first two games. We played James Hargest College in the morning, with a 21 - 14 win. That afternoon we played Garin College and won again, 37 - 19. This put us into the top 16 of the 32 teams, with one more pool game to play. We went down to St Margaret’s, 29 - 15, but there were some great plays with a very even second half, and it was a chance to get all our players out on court. That afternoon we had a close game, but disappointingly went down to Southland Girls, 27 - 24. On Wednesday morning we played St Andrews (eventual tournament winners), with another big loss, 35 - 15. We played Central Southland in the afternoon, and it was very tight through the whole game with the final score being 20-18 to Dunstan. Despite taking that win, our second pool was unusually close with three teams on the same points. Unfortunately our lower goal differential put us in the 13-16 playoffs. We played St Kevins in our Semi Final, coming away with the win, 34 - 15, with everyone in the team involved in securing this good result. We went on to play Rangiora for 13th/14th that afternoon, for our last game of the tournament. We were down by 6 at half time, 14 - 8, and morale was low. By 3⁄4 time we had pulled it back to within 3, and our coaches asked us how much we wanted it, and told us they believed in us. It was a very exciting final minute: we were down by 1, with Rangiora’s centre pass. Tayla got a crucial intercept, but then we lost it again. A loose ball was picked up by Dunstan, and sent down to Esther in the pocket, who delivered a beautiful feed into Alyssa. We sunk the shot with about three seconds to spare. Everyone was on their feet and excited, both the players and our amazing supporters. It was a great way to finish the tournament, and the final score was 26 all.

Final Placing - 13th equal across the South Island’s year 9 teams.

Thank you so much to our amazing parents, grandparents and siblings for all their support on the sidelines, and to our coaches who always had belief in us. Many thanks to Rewa and Chris Robinson from Central Excavating for lending us their van for this tournament (as well as for Otago Secondary Schools), and also covering all of the fuel costs.