Close contests abound in senior grades

POINTS BATTLE: The battle will be on tomorrow for senior teams at Victoria Domain particularly in premier reserve. YMP have two teams featuring in the division and with the premier side’s excelllent start to the season. Ata Mangu (with ball) was pictured in action for the YMP premier side during the Kathleen Henderson tournament. Picture by Paul Rickard

by Sherrill Beale and Murray Robertson

The intensity and close competition for points in the other senior grades will more than make up for a lack of premier grade action in the netball at Victoria Domain tomorrow.

Premier teams Whangara Old Girls and TurangaFM YMP had wins in their midweek matches in the Pak’nSave competition on Wednesday night.

The end of Round 1 is closing in and the fight is on in the other grades for places in the challenge games to be played next month.

Premier Reserve play their first challenge game on Wednesday, May 10, at the YMCA and the second on Saturday, May 13.

Many of the Prem Reserve scores have been close, but YMP (2) lead with three wins from three games.

At 12 midday tomorrow they play Old Girls Whangara, who are at the bottom of the table after two losses and a draw.

High School Old Girls are second on eight points and at 1pm tomorrow play Farmlands Ngatapa, who are only three points behind them.

This game will be competitive as both teams have had close scores in the three weeks of competition.

YMP Masters and Horouta Taimana will contest what should be another close Prem Reserve game. It starts at 9am.

Horouta Taimana are on six points after a win, loss and draw, while YMP Masters are on five points from a win and two losses.

This weekend’s games are important for all of these teams.

The points are close across all other grades.

• In Wednesday night’s premier games, Whangara Old Girls picked up crucial points and Claydens Waikohu (1) gave defending champions YMP a stern test.

Whangara defeated Horouta Koura 30-17. It was 7-5 to Whangara at the end of the first quarter, then they led 13-12 at halftime and 24-14 at three-quartertime.

Horouta would have come into this game full of confidence after their win against Waikohu on Saturday, and the game was close for the first two quarters.

Defensive pressure and missed goals gave Whangara an 11-2 third-quarter advantage, and they had a 10-goal lead to take into the final quarter.

The winners steadied for the last quarter and banked the crucial four points.

In the second match it was extremely close for three-quarters of the match.

YMP were up 11-10 at the end of the first quarter, then Waikohu led 21-20 at halftime. It was 28-all at the three-quarter mark.

In the end YMP, won 43-36.

It was the first rematch of last year’s grand finalists, and it stayed close for the first three quarters.

Every time one team got on a run, the other would pull back, and the lead changed multiple times over the first 30 minutes.

But YMP dominated the final 10 minutes, winning the quarter 15-8 to secure the win.

The premier points totals are: TurangaFM YMP 16, Whangara OG 8, Claydens Waikohu (1) 5, Horouta Koura 4, GGHS Snr A 1.

The senior matches run from 9am to 3pm tomorrow, and the school grades (Year 5 and 6, Intermediate and Secondary) take the courts for the start of their 2023 season.