The 2016 netball season has been one of the best yet. We started off the year with the selection of the team. This year the team was filled with a variety of age and experience and made for an exciting year.

The Manawatu College Senior A Netball Team for 2016: Emily Culleton (captain), Carla Whittaker (captain), Shania Gray, Natalie MacDonald, Summah Chambers, Eden Chambers, Saryah Chambers, Aaliyah Thorby, Tayla Kuiti and Karlissa Capri.

This season was all about rebuilding, bringing new talents together with experience to create a team that could take Manawatu College further than before.   In preparation for our ultimate goal of Lower Norths, our Saturday competition provided us with the perfect stepping stone to help secure our best starting team and build connections across the court. There were injuries along the way where people needed to step up to fill certain positions they were unfamiliar with, doing so without complaint.

After a season of netball and the team at their peak, we set off to Wanganui for a week to participate in the Lower North Island Netball Tournament. Manawatu College has been participating in this event for the past 5 years.  Last year we got our best placing of 13th, and our goal for this year was to make the top 10.

This week was filled with fun on and off the court with the highlights of the trip being a mix of our outstanding results and the fun we had back at camp. This is where our close team bond really showed as all of the girls wanted to be together and therefore we had 7 girls in two rooms at one point, ‘sleepover’ style.

Our results from the Lower North tournament were unbelievable and we even shocked ourselves at what we were able to achieve.

By the end of the second day we were undefeated with four wins against Tararua College, Porirua College, Onslow College and Wanganui Girls High. On the third day we have a tough first game against Paraparaumu College who we suffered our first lost to, then in our afternoon game we played Waiopehu College and claimed our fifth win, beating them by 1.

The last two days saw us playing off for a top 8 position. We won our first game against St Peter's College and then had a loss against Horowhenua who qualified for top two. Our final game of the tournament saw us playing Wairarapa College, who we lost to. However our performance throughout the week meant that we had placed 6th overall out of 28 teams: well above our goal.

On behalf of the team we would like to say thanks for all of the support we received from the students, parents, community and staff over the season, from the messages on facebook to the people who watched our live streams provided by Miss Park and all of the fundraising we did in between. Thank you for all of the support we received during our Saturday games and also to everyone who made the effort to travel to Wanganui to watch us play.

We want to wish the Senior A next year a huge 'good luck' for their season and we look forward to seeing how far the team will go next year.

Emily Culleton & Carla Whittaker