Silver medals for High School netballers

COOKSTOWN High School Senior Netball Squad qualified for the Northern Ireland Netball Finals held in Antrim Forum on 22nd March 2012. This is only the second time in the school’s history that they have reached the finals of this competition. This ranks them as one of the top netball squads in N. Ireland this year.

To reach the final, the girls had to play in the S.E.L.B. area league first. The S.E.L.B. League is comprised of a number of extremely talented netball squads and the results from the matches proved how highly contested this league was. The results were as follows:

Seniors : Cookstown 25 Sacred Heart, Newry 22, Cookstown 39 Banbridge 26, Cookstown 20 Our Lady’s Newry 22, Cookstown 38 St Mary’s Newry 21, Cookstown 33 St Michael’s Lurgan 10

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The Senior League finished with a three way tie for first position. As only the top two teams can progress to the final, this meant that a three way play off had to be played in order to determine first and second place.

Cookstown faced Our Lady’s Newry and Sacred Heart in this play off and cruised to victory beating Our Lady’s by 22 goals to 6 and defeating Sacred Heart 16 goals to 7.

They then played Lumen Christi in the semi finals. Cookstown had previously met Lumen Christi in the cup and it proved to be a very fiercely contested match, with the game having to go to extra time before Cookstown emerged victorious. The league Semi final against them also proved to be extremely tough, with both teams fighting tooth and nail for the victory.

Cookstown kept the pressure on throughout the match and but really upped their game in the final quarter to secure the win, defeating Lumen 39 goals to 27. This win resulted in them qualifying for the N. Ireland League finals.

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In the Northern Ireland League finals, Cookstown faced a very strong and determined Friends School, Lisburn. Cookstown played some great netball but unfortunately Friends School were just too good on the day. Cookstown let their guard down in the second quarter and Friends eased ahead. Cookstown refused to give up and fought to the end but sadly it just wasn’t to be Cookstown’s year.

Cookstown brought home extremely well deserved N. Ireland Silver medals. This is no mean feat as the girls had to contend with over 30 of the best netball schools in Northern Ireland.

It has been another fantastic year for all the netballers and they deserve everything they have achieved. The girls have worked very hard all year to achieve this success. The school are very proud of all their achievements.

Squad:

Laura Sloan ( Captain), Megan Millar (Vice Captain), Amy Parke, Melissa Hull, Lauren Bell, Rebecca Smyth, Lorraine Burns, Hannah Martin, Kathryn Sloan, Hannah Keane, Lauren Bowden, Jill Somerville, Jacqueline Burns.

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