On Saturday 13th April the Wycombe Abbey Under 13 Netball teams competed in the Shanghai Netball Competition against other international schools from the area.
The pupils from these schools have been playing for several years and consist of mainly Western players. Therefore, the games were a real challenge for WAIS but it was a great opportunity for the girls to gain experience and an extremely positive way to move netball forward in our school.
It was an early start, leaving school at 6am to travel to Dulwich College in Puxi. The Wycombe Abbey teams looked very smart playing in their new netball uniform and acted very professionally throughout the day. The girls were a credit to the school.
The Under 13A were incredibly nervous and this was evident in the first two quarters against Dulwich College Suzhou. However, in the fourth quarter they showed great determination and perseverance as they found their confidence and began to attack the ball and gain possession with the shooters scoring crucial goals.
The defence circle was led strongly by J. Jiang who showed agility and quickness to successfully create pressure to create a turnover. Although the score was not in their favor at 11-21, the lessons the girls learned from the game will be invaluable for the future.
The U13B game against Dulwich College Puxi Under 13B was always going to be a tough one. Nerves got the better of them in the game and future training sessions will be vital to help them deal with this. But it was good to see the girls still in high spirits on the trip home, which can only be beneficial leading into next week’s game. There is a great deal of work to do, yet after the team’s encouraging performances their coaches are very optimistic about moving forward and achieving future success.
Under 13A team– A. Li, C. Zheng, P. Fu, S. Sun, S. Zhan, T. Wang, J. Jiang, Z. Wang, S. Gu, M. Yuan, J. Wang
Under 13B team – E. Zhao, J. Zhu, C. Tang, R. Chen, A. Zeng, R. Stevens, C. Yu, S. ding, N Liu