Collegiate have twin titles in their sights
NETBALL: The Collegiate Netball Club is shooting for two titles and a third placing in the Invercargill Netball Centre’s Saturday competition.
The 91-year-old club will be striving for success in its Premier A grade game against Southland Girls’ High School.
Collegiate haven’t won the trophy since breaking a 42-year drought in 2011 under the management of current coach Tina Frew.
Frew is hoping for a 60-minute performance from her side.
‘‘I have confidence in my girls’ abilities and experience to play a controlled and consistent Collegiate style of game for the full hour,’’ she said.
Her team features a mixture of youth and experience. Southland under-19 representative Kelly Shearing has created a dynamic midcourt combination with the experienced Rochelle Van Beek, who is one of the survivors from the 2011 triumph.
The defensive trio of Rachel Diprose, former Steel player Rachel Rasmussen and Nicky Kuru will be kept on their toes by the students, while the fresh shooting combination of Rachel Dawson and Amanda Wilson will be looking to continue their strong season.
Collegiate Gold finished the regular season first after an unbeaten second round of matches.
They will be tested by the youthful Girls’ High combination who finished second heading into the finals under coach Natalie Avellino.
Both sides had challenging semifinal victories last Saturday. Collegiate toppled Bluff 45-41, while SGHS accounted for St Mary’s 51-46.
The top grade final will begin at 2.45pm on court 1 after it was orig- inally scheduled for a 2pm start, following concerns from club supporters that they would be unable to watch the end of the feature match without clashing with other finals.
The match was initially scheduled for an earlier start because of a potential clash with a trans-Tasman netball league grand final.
Collegiate White play Waimatua Black in the Second B grade final on court two at 2.30pm, while in the sixth division third place final the Collegiate’s purple team will go into battle against country side Mokotua Blue.