The U14 team had an incredible weekend at the Netball South Performance Clubs Invitational and finished in a fantastic third place.

The team’s chances were dealt a blow when shooter Maliyah suffered a fractured ankle two weeks before the competition. Despite being in a protective boot she joined her team mates to cheer them on from the side lines. We wish her a speedy recovery.

Eagles’ first match was against the very strong Kingsway Power team, who eventually went on to win the competition. We took the loss 18-32, but this was the only game over the whole weekend where Kingsway Power’s opposition scored more than half of their score.

After wins against Sutton Juniors and AP Saints, the final match on Saturday was against Turnford, with the winners guaranteed to play for the top six places on Sunday. The U14s pulled out all the stops and with a fantastic all round team performance won by a single goal.

First match on Sunday was against Kingsway Power again, which we lost, but then had a win against a young Poole team to take Eagles into the third place playoff match.

The playoff match was against TTNC Trojans, with Eagles racing to an 11-4 lead at the end of Q1. We held this lead until the final quarter when some unforced errors from Eagles allowed TTNC to get back to within 2 goals, but the defence remained solid and Eagles held on to win third place.

A special shout out this weekend to Mima, who moved from defence to shooter at the start of Saturday to replace the injured Maliyah, and by the end of the first day was shooting with so much confidence and great shooting stats. “Shooting Queen” Mima and “Interception Queen” Tomi were named coaches players of the tournament, with Tomi also voted MVP by opposition teams.

Congratulations to our U14s Summer, Lila, Sofia, Tomi, Eve, Millie, Caitlin, Akaal, Imogen, Mima, Emily and Isobel, and coaches Maria, Carly, Neil, Tina, and Maddi as player support. And thanks to umpires Emma Izon and Clare Daly who joined us for the U14 and U16 competitions.