One of the Netballers favourite days of the year took place last Tuesday at Bellahouston Sports Centre. Glasgow Schools Netball Festival involved S1 teams taking part in the morning session then S2 teams in the afternoon. The S1s played a league style tournament with the team at the top crowned champions. With more teams in the S2 competition they were split into two leagues initially then there were semi finals and a final to decide the winner.
The S1 team have been making good progress in Netball since the start of the year. The girls are awaiting confirmation on other teams league fixture but they are likely to be in the final 4 playoffs for the Glasgow Schools Title. Well done girls! Anyway, back to the tournament. In the league competition set up SGG had to play every team. Games were short and sharp, 10 minutes. The girls started a wee bit sleepy but improved with every game. They played some great Netball and worked very well as a team. The girls played 5 games, won 4 and drew 1. This resulted in the girls coming second, only to loose out on goal difference. Whitehill won the tournament, well done to them. They just scored a few more goals than SGG and this was the team that SGG drew with in the first game. The girls should be proud of their performances during the competition. A couple of games were close but they worked hard in defence and in attack to make the most of possession and get the ball to the shooters. The girls recieved some nice comments from the umpires who were in charge of the games, after watching their games they said the girls played some great Netball. One umpire was very impressed with Lucie’s performances and said she was close to getting player of the tournament. Olive received the ‘intercept of the day’ award from the organisers for her performances at Goal Defence. Congratulations Olive, you deserved it! Overall second in their first tournament is a really great result for the S1 team, keep up the hard work girls!
SGG - Whitehill Draw
SGG - St Thomas Aquinas Won
SGG - Bannerman Won
SGG - Holyrood Won
SGG - Shawlands Won
S2s
The S2 team have been working extremely hard this year. Their experience at the Inrernational Festival in Paris in October where they came third School in the competition proved to be a massive step forwards for their standard of play. Since then the girls have been playing even better. The S2 tournament on paper to me looked like the best tournament at the S2 level in the 5 years since Netball has been going at SGG. Teams such as Holyrood who have just beaten the current Scottish Champions in the Gold Section of the Scottish Cup. Hyndland who have a number of their team playing for Broomhill A Club team. Other teams such as Shawlands and Bannerman to name a couple have some excellent players in them, players playing at club district level which is a very high standard. It was good to have such great teams together for a tournament.
As stated before the tournament was initially split into two leagues then the top two teams from each of those league progressed to the semi finals then finals. The second years arrived to Bellahouston just in time to see the S1s collect their silver medals, they shared their congratulations and this gave them even more motivation to begin their own competition.
The team started with three wins in the league and won their group stage. They played well together in the initial games and progressed to the semi finals against the team who finished 2nd position in the other league, Hyndland. The girls had lost to Hyndland in their first league fixture of the year back in October so they knew the massive challenge ahead. During the game the girls played some fantastic netball and at the end of the 10 minutes they had won 14-5. This meant that they progressed to the final against Holyrood 1. The Holyrood 1 is undoubtably one of the best teams in the country so the girls went in to the final knowing that they needed their best to be competitive. They certainly brought their best to the court, the game was much closer than when they had met over a year ago in the S1 League. Holyrood ended up winning 11-7 and deserved their victory. This meant SGG came home with the silver medals and they should be extremely proud of their performance throughout the day, a fantastic display of team work. The Glasgow District Wildcats coach told the girls at the end of the day that they should all go for district trials in August, what a compliment to receive! The whole team played well from Orlagh at GK all the way through to Millie at GS they worked extremely hard for each other. Before receiving their silver medals the organisers gave out some additional awards. Millie Soutar won the ‘shot of the day’ award for her performance at Goal Shooter. She was excellent in each of our games. Additionally, Abbey won the main award ‘Player of the Tournament’ what a fantastic achievement! She was outstanding all day, congratulations!
Below is a photo of the girls with their silver medals! Next year they’ll be entered into the Scottish Cup for the first time, so keep up the hard work.
SGG vs Holyrood 2 Won
SGG vs Jordanhill Won
SGG vs Bannerman Won
Semis
SGG vs Hyndland Won
Final
SGG vs Holyrood 1 7-11
