It was an action-packed weekend as girls school went head to head in the Spar KZN Schoolgirls’ Fast 5S Netball Challenge Highway Regional held at Hillcrest High School on Saturday, 17 September. The challenge saw ten schools fighting for the win, with Durban Girls High, Westville Girls’ High School, Curro Hillcrest, Ridge Park and Indlovukazi Invitational participating in Pool A.
In Pool B, it was the regional champions, Luthayi High, Gelofte High, St Henry’s Marist College and Hillcrest High School
In the regional final, Luthayi took on Durban Girls’ High School, where they dominated from the get-go. It took 11 seconds for Luthayi to register their first goal, and with a goal a minute, they concluded the game at 16 – 6.
Luthayi gave no room to Girls’ High in the first half, not letting them settle at all. An alert Luthayi defence and midfield were on the ball, intercepting countless times and sending play up to Miss Consistent, the power house goal shooter and captain Aphiwe Thusini , who was camped out directly under the goals and who netted majority of her team’s points throughout the day.
Durban Girls’ High School worked valiantly in the second half, battling to get into their stride and try and find some rhythm as they forced their way into the Luthayi circle but were just unable to capitalise on these opportunities.
Luthayi concluded their day with a marvelous 16 – 6 win. After the game, captain for Luthayi High, Aphiwe Thusini said: “It was a really great tournament, the other teams gave us a lot of pressure throughout the day. We are delighted that we managed to win the nail-biter against Curro. They were a hard team to beat.”
It wasn’t all smooth sailing for the eventual winners, in their semi-final, Lathery had to grind their way to victory against Curro Hillcrest in an action-packed game that flowed rapidly from side to side. The score was level on 13 each at full time, so the game went to one minute decider in extra time.
In the bronze medal game, Curro Hillcrest who had left everything on the court in their semi, met Gelofte High School who were firing on all cylinders. Gelofte opened up the scoring and for majority of the game, had the advantage but a late surge by the local team saw Curro come back to a 15 – 14 victory, taking a well-deserved third place.
