Teams do Albany proud at champs

Six teams represented Albany Netball Association at the Netball WA 2017 Smarter than Smoking Association Championships, held at Wembley Sports Park last weekend.

The best-performing of the six competing teams from the region was in the 14-and-under division 3 competition, where Albany finished third and missed out on reaching the grand final only by percentage.

Albany lost narrowly by three goals to Sports Ready Singapore 1 in their opening qualifying match before defeating Eastern Goldfields 29-11, but then suffered a single-goal loss to Busselton 1.

They then lost by three goals to Fremantle 3 on Sunday morning but rebounded to win their final three matches and finish with eight points, locked together with Joondalup 1, Sports Ready Singapore 1 and Busselton 1.

Joondalup, however, progressed to the decider against Fremantle with a superior percentage of 124.62 compared to Albany’s 122.22.

Albany also performed strongly in division 1 of the 12-and-under age group, finishing fourth with three wins and three losses.

In the other grades, Albany finished fourth in the 15-and-under division 3, were third in open division 5 and were fifth in both 17-and-under division 1 and 13-and-under division 1.

ANA president Trish Hines said the teams performed very well against some strong rival associations.

“All in all, we did pretty good but unfortunately didn’t take out any finals,” Hines said.

“We had a couple of teams popped up to division 1 and they were competing against massive associations, but still fared reasonably well.

“It was also great to have new uniforms for the girls to wear at the carnival.”