1st netball girls win against Chigwell

On Saturday 7 March, the 1st team travelled to Chigwell for this week’s fixture. Haileybury had started off in anticipation when realising that Chigwell 1’s were coached by the ex-England Netball captain Amanda Newton, so we knew that they would be a well-drilled team.

After the first quarter, Haileybury led by the merest of margins 10-9. The game was going to be hard fought, as the tactics were always to launch a high ball into their Goal Shooter who was about 6 foot 6 tall, with a wing-span to match!

After a team talk and change of tactics at quarter time, Haileybury got into their usual rhythm and, with some excellent movement and accurate shots from the shooters, Harrie Griffith-Jones and Louisa Sorensen, Haileybury began to dominate the game. The score at half time was 23-14.

In the 3rd quarter, Haileybury let come back and we were unable to stop them using the advantage of their very tall GS. After ¾ time the score was 29-20. However, once realising the score was close, Haileybury in the 4th quarter upped their game and, with determined goal third marking from Jess Izatt and speedy, accurate feeds into our shooters from Olivia Chapman and Alice Coley, we began to extend the lead again. This was also due to the defence whose close, tight marking stopped Chigwell able to get many shots in. Credit goes to Freddie Waites and Jade Sexton who had to work extra hard and jump extra high to try and intercept the feeds to the GS. The final result was a well-deserved 37-25 win.

by Harrie Griffith-Jones

1st team Netball Captain

School Netball Captain