Tushka Stringer, Caidence Reberger, Anabel Vergano, Chloe Clark, Jorja Vergano, Lilly Clark, Rih Moncrieff, Ash Janic, Mangi Temaru-Davis, Laura Thorn, Erica Wooden.
The Junee Ex-Services Blaze B Grade team took out their Grand Final at Wagga in a nail-biting 40–39 win. Jorja Vergano also won Best On Court as a huge crowd of Junee locals came along to cheer the girls in their big game.
Robert Vergano of the Club said it was a testament to the skill and dedication of the team.
“They came out with a game plan and they executed it perfectly, and we were able to reap the rewards and have a win,” he said. “They’re all ecstatic to be grand final winners. We trained as usual last week twice a week and we had a team dinner on Wednesday night. Saturday morning they had brunch as a team together and we did our usual pre-game prep and warm-up and treated it like any other game and they came through and they’re all very, very happy.
“It was quite a tight game. Absolute credit to the opposition, they were a very fit and skilful team and they kept our girls running and we were lucky we had a deep bench and we were able to roll players on and off to keep up the momentum that the opposition played at and the speed of the game. We definitely maximised our rolling subs to keep that intensity up there and keep up with our opponents.
“We got off to an early start, which was our goal. It was to have them chasing us, not us chasing them throughout the game. We kept the lead pretty much the entire game, so they were chasing us the entire game, which was part of the game plan. Another big part of the game plan for us was to retain possession throughout the game and I think our possession percentage was extremely high, hence the result and the closeness of the game.
“The support from Junee on the day was massive. It was absolutely huge. The stand where our game was being played was full of Junee people that are local community members and friends of players and family and everything, so there were people from town here that had come down to support the girls and other players across the club as well, athletes from other Junee teams. It was really impressive to see.
“It’s definitely good for netball and it’s good for netball here in Junee as well. We’ve got a good calibre of players and across the club, not just in our top team that won the grandfinal, but across the club, as a whole, we’ve got a great calibre of players. We’ve got a good network program running here as well.
“We have our presentations coming up in mid-October, so it would be good to get everybody together again and celebrate the season it’s been.”
What a great result for a local team.
– Jack Murray
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