On the weekend of 5-8 July, the Kiama Netball Association (KNA) competed at the HART Junior State Titles, with both teams performing really well.

The U13’s team won the title while the U12’s team came close and were the runners-up.

The U12 Runners-Up

“It’s been a little while since we’ve had that success, particularly with more than one team. Usually we might get one team out of the five or six that we send away, so to get the two of them being so successful is a pretty big thing for us,” says a thrilled KNA president Michelle Gregory.

Gregory attributes the success to the hard work put in by the players and the team spirit within the group.

“I think they've trained really hard, even with all the rain and everything that we’ve had, they kept training through it all. The coaches have worked hard on creating a really nice team spirit across the two different teams so that helped when games were close or tough. I think the girls really rallied around each other and helped get themselves over the line,” she says.

The U13’s team were completely undefeated over the three days, even though they had a brief hiccup just before the weekend.

“They had a last-minute change due to illness, and we had to withdraw a player on the Monday before they left and add in a training partner,” Gregory says.

She explains that the whole weekend was successful, not only the results but also the relationships and the memories that the players made.

“They were in the tents together the whole time, and on the court at the same time, so they did spend an awful lot of time together hearing from each other about how the games were going. I think there will be lots of netball memories for them.” 

The girls wore Destination Kiama caps, which they wrote messages on and gave to other teams.

Councillor Matt Brown says that the success of the teams and this tradition of sharing caps is a great way for people to learn about the great place, which is Kiama.

“I’m really pleased that our netball team are not only promoting their sport and their prowess, but they’re supporting visitors coming to Kiama. These girls are sharing their Kiama caps with girls from right around the state, and I think that is a wonderful thing that our sport is doing to promote Kiama as a destination.”