The Kingdom Stars were nowhere to be found in their 44-32 loss against the Southern Stings. Both teams were still warming up and trying to gain momentum as the first quarter ended 10-8 to the Stings. The Western Cape team showed up from the second quarter, looking very solid on court and displayed brilliant composure which saw them lead from the second quarter right until the final whistle.
This was their final round one match, and the Stars have a mammoth task ahead of them in the next round to try and finish in a comfortable position having lost five consecutive games and occupy the bottom of Division A. Meanwhile, the Stings have won 3 out of 5 games and drew 1 match against the defending champions so far.
The second round starts tomorrow and Stings coach- Annelie Lucas says its game on: ‘’The second half will be tough, we know that so we had to set up a nice position but now the game is on. This is where the competition actually starts and we ready for that’’. Queens captain- Precious Mthembu is still optimistic about round two: ‘’In the next round, we really going to work on closing that gap and hopefully get a win in one, two or even three games.
In the second game, the combination at the back between goalkeeper- Palesa Mbukwana and goal defense- Maryke Coetzee paved way for the Sunbirds to beat the Kingdom Queens 43-34. Queen’s shooters- Nomfundo Mngomezulu and Sinethemba Mkhize had the opportunity to add more goals in the final quarter but could not convert some of their chances which resulted in their fourth defeat of the tournament.
This is what Sunbirds captain Faith Motau had to say after the match ‘’The last quarter we played with a totally inexperienced team and I think there were only two girls who had experience. From the first quarter to the last quarter we said we going to carry each other and that is exactly what we did today’’.
The Eastern Cape Aloes maintained their number two spot in Division B following their 45-29 win over the Northern Cape Diamonds this afternoon. The Aloes shooting department have been an integral part in their success, shooting a total number of 189 goals in five matches with a goal difference of 41 which is the best in their Division.
