Once again the CGHS Netball Club has had an awesome season this year with a total of 22 teams competing in the Wednesday and Saturday competitions. It has been great to see so many girls of all ages getting involved, showing such great sportsmanship and doing CGHS proud.

We gained great results in both the Wednesday and Saturday competitions from many CGHS teams. Well done to the Senior B team who were A grade winners in the Wednesday competition as well as the E team in B grade, Div 2. The P Team came 2nd in the Year 9 Div 1 grade, the K team came 2nd in the Year 9 Div 2 grade and the U team came 2nd in the Year 9 Div 3 grade. Well done.

A huge congratulations also goes to the CGHS J team who were U15 Div 2 winners in the Saturday competition. This was the only CGHS team that made finals day. Congratulations also to the A, H, K and N teams who made the semi-finals in their Saturday competitions.

In the July holidays our Year 9 A and Year 10 A teams took part in the annual Junior South Island Secondary Schools’ Tournament held at Hagley Park where they both did exceptionally well over the sunny four days. The Year 9 A’s came across some very tough competition throughout the week, only missing out on making the top four by a few narrow points and then going down to James Hargest which put them in a position to play off for 7th and 8th. The girls played their hearts out and were determined to finish the tournament off on a high, ending up coming a well-deserved 7th after beating rivals, Cashmere High School. The Year 10 A team went into the tournament dead set on improving their result from last year. It was great to see such a huge improvement in the team with a well deserved result of 10th. The girls had a very fun week away with lots of laughs. It was great to see the support that they had towards each other for every game that they both played. A huge thank-you goes to Kate Howden (assisted by Rosie Stewart), (Year 10A coach) Caitlin Adlam (Year 9A coach) and managers Tracey Hastings and Jo Harris for all giving up all there time to train and support these girls throughout the season.

The Senior A team travelled down to Dunedin on the 2nd of September to compete in the four day South Island Secondary School Netball tournament. After placing 5th last year and qualifying for the National Secondary Schools’ Tournament we had high hopes of doing the same again. Heading down with quite a young team consisting of one Year 13, six Year 12s, four Year 11s and one Year 10, the team did extremely well. They won every game except the semi final against Villa Maria College, a very tough competitor, and lost 34-26. The team went on to finish with a win of 37-35 against Nelson College for Girls, resulting in 3rd place in the tournament. This also meant that we still had another month of netball as we, once again, qualified for the National Secondary Schools tournament that took place in Ashburton from the 8th to 12th of October. Over the course of 18 games played over the four days, we lost by narrow margins of 2 or 3 which was frustrating but a great learning curve. We ended the tournament on a peak as we won our very last game. On behalf of the team I’d like to say thank-you to coaches Rosie Stewart and Chloe Williamson who gave us so much knowledge, continuous effort, time and patience throughout the season. Also thanks goes to Mrs Brown our manager for keeping us under control and being our number one supporter throughout the season. Congratulations to Shana Ali who was named in the South Island Secondary Schools Tournament Team.