‘We sure showed them,’ says Sargent

Harcourts player-coach Kelly Sargent was holding nothing back after her team earned promotion to division one of the regional superleague netball competition by beating Rimutaka 50-45 at Taita on Saturday.
Sargent's main thoughts at the end of a game which saw Harcourts stage a spirited recovery after trailing by one goal going into the last five minutes of the final quarter revolved around what their victory should mean for Wairarapa netball as a whole.
In her view the Wellington netball community all too often seems to treat Wairarapa as "country bumpkins" and by Harcourts qualifying to play in the top division of the superleague her hope was that attitude would change.
"It puts us amongst the best sides in the Wellington region and that should open a few eyes," she said. "Sometimes you wonder if they overlook our players for higher honours because of where they come from rather than how good they are. Hopefully that will change too."
Harcourts had won their three previous superleague matches before Saturday's game but promotion to division one still rested on whether or not they defeated Rimutaka.
Win and they would be promoted, lose and they would remain in division two.
It was Rimutaka who called the early shots, racing out to a 5-1 lead in the first quarter, but Harcourts then got into their stride and after claiming the lead soon after they held it right through until the closing stages of the final quarter when Rimutaka edged ahead by one.
Sargent admits those were anxious times for Harcourts but they held their nerve and by changing their tactical approach to play a short passing game they finished the stronger of the two sides.
"We played smart and made some good decisions when they counted most," she said.
"They (Rimutaka) were a tall side who were always likely to pick up intercepts of long and high passes and when we started giving short passes we negated a lot of that."
Sargent was quick to concede, however, that a Rimutaka side which included an ex-Silver Fern in defender Corinne Pickard, provided tougher opposition than she had anticipated.
"They are a very good side, they didn't have too many weaknesses we could expose," she said.
The closeness of the exchanges meant Harcourts kept the same seven players on court the whole game with centre Katie Wyeth again being the star of the show with her agility and astuteness on both attack and defence.
Emma Foote warmed up for her boxing bout later in the evening with her usual assertive performance at wing defence while the in circle defence of both Te Ata Phillips and Elena Heggie was impressive.
At the attacking end Carlene Karaitiana linked well with shooters Geraldine Carroll and Sargent herself, both of whom made the most of the large percentage of their scoring opportunities.