The highlight of the day for the girls was beating Young 9-7. Once again our shooters of Sally, Lillian, Hayley and Georgie are working well together.

Our wonderful defence of Emily, Jayne, Meg and Joanna kept a number of goals out, and in centre court great running by Erica and Isabelle.

The girls headed to Dubbo the next weekend which was a learning experience again for the team.

Results soon.

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The 13 years Rep team had an interesting final carnival before State Age Championships.

They started slow due to the rain and wet courts against Forbes and disappointingly had a loss for the first round.

Continued page 13.

They quickly recovered in the next rounds to have convincing wins against teams from Group 14, Young, Wellington, Cootamundra and Tullibigeal.

The highlight of the day was the match up between Mudgee and Parkes. Going into the game the Parkes girls had to win the next two matches to take out their division. It was a very hard fought and tightly contested game right from the first whistle and at half time the Parkes girls were up by 2 goals. It came down to the wire however it wasn't meant to be as Mudgee managed to score some quick goals and came away with a 3 goal win.

After that game the Parkes girls played a very deflated last game against Cowra and lost it, along with the promise of winning of the division. The girls will take away some good lessons from the Parkes carnival and hopefully put them into practise and learn from their mistakes by the time they get to the State Age Championships.

The good points for the day were that the Goal Shooters who consist of Emily Paton, Georgia Ryan and Jade Haywood have all improved their accuracy over the season and with constant practice should be able to bring us home at the championships with some good results. Darnika Hill, Taylah Smeade and Ashley Tolhurst all worked well together in the defending circle and have been working hard on their rebounds. The Mid court which consists of Hayley Chester, Racheal Kelly, Mirelle Marks and Ally Hetherington all combined brilliantly with both the defenders and shooters to help win those game convincingly.

From all the Parents, the Coach and the Manager we wish these girls every success and have our finger crossed for an awesome result and the Sate Age Championships 2009.

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The under 14’s rep team had a full complement of players, but took some time it would appear to adjust to the conditions.

After a slow start, loosing there first three games they seemed to get it together as the day warmed up and won the next two, showing the supporters and adjacent spectators glimces of there capabilities.

After this the girls were able to match most teams in the first half but seemed to fade in the second half, a lack of fitness, possibly due to the inclement weather over the last two weeks and cancelled training.

While they did manage to hold off a fast finish Mudgee in the last game of the day, with the desire to win, this was welcomed at the end of such a long day. With a win loss ration of 3 to 6 for the day and with no injuries, the girls need to get back into a regular training regime and work hard to prepare for the Dubbo carnival next week.

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Home soil often accounts for much when teams battle in competitions, and this was the case for the Parkes 15 Years Representative team when they played at home on the weekend of 14 June at the Parkes Annual Junior Carnival.

The girls had a disrupted game preparation with illness and injury, but on the day all players were fit and ready to take the courts against some tough competition. The 15’s only had 6 teams in their division, so this meant they played semi finals and finals as well.

Winning their first four games, and having a draw in the fifth put the Parkes team into the finals. They played Mudgee in the Semi final and the team played hard, attacking netball and were convincing winners 15-8. This was by far the best game of the day. All players on court played outstanding netball. Their effort was second to none and they proved that they were worthy finalists. Once again Elise Kiley shot extremely well at 82%. She was ably fed by Madeleine Leeming at WA who played her best game for the season. Emma Gosper in the C was ferocious in defence and she caused many turnovers in the mid court. Grace Murray had an outstanding game at GK, gaining many rebounds and intercepts.

The Final saw Parkes play Griffith. Once again the strong Griffith team were winners 16-7. The Parkes team suffered a minor setback with GD Kayla Thornhill leaving the court only 2 minutes into the game with cramps. Ashley Rosser stepped into the GK position and this forced Grace Murray into the GD position. Ashley and Grace combined really well with limited preparation and they never stopped trying to turn the ball over. The Griffith shooters proved very quick around the circle and both Ashley and Grace did an amazing job in trying to disrupt their play. All players took the court in the Final with the standout players being Ashley Rosser, Madeleine Leeming, Rai Warren and Stacey Jones. Brigette Johnston moved into the GS position in the second half and mad some very nice moves, however her shooting stats of 33% spoilt the good work that she was doing in the circle. Stacey Jones shot at 70% to help keep us moving forward. It was a hard game and coach Sandra Canellis praised her team for their efforts.

The Parkes 15s were runners-up at the Parkes Annual Junior Carnival in 2009!! Well done to all the girls, and thank you to Coach Sandra Canellis and fitness trainer Greg Jones. This was great preparation for the girls for State Age – showing them that they can match it with their competition and if they get the little things right, they can get fantastic results. Thank you to Manager Liz Thornhill for keeping everyone happy on the day. Thanks to Nikki Thornhill as umpire – Nikki travelled from Wagga to help support the girls and we all appreciate her efforts on the day. Thank you to Cheryle Haywood – our rep coordinator- who once again left nothing to chance and made our day a breeze.