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Photos: Zoe Bennell
The stage was set in the tent with a strong turnout of supporters to watch James College take on Hild Bede College from Durham in the Netball 2nds. James gave the crowd a vast number of reasons to cheer in a valiant effort against the side from Durham but could never quite recover from going behind early in the first quarter and trailed for the remainder of the match. Both teams started evenly in the first quarter with James passing the ball well and weaving some impressive attacks through the court but a few careless passes allowed Hild Bede to exhibit their strengths in attack, capitalising on James’ mistakes to lead 9-4 at the end of the first quarter.
James continued to look dangerous in attack, GA Sam Hall and GS Allison Pullan linking up well to out manoeuvre the Hild Bede defenders, however the Durham college were much more frequent with their pressure and finished the second quarter with a comfortable lead of 20-11, James having a massive mountain to climb to get their way back into the fixture. To the delight of the spectators in the tent James responded well to the deficit and started the third quarter strongly, scoring straight from the restart to kick start their comeback and chip away at Durham’s lead.
The York side showed a lot of improvement in defence, pressing their opponents and forcing them into making poor shots which they were not making in the earlier stages of the match. Some well worked attacks and a great shot form Pullan rewarded their much improved play with a smaller deficit to make up with the score at 20-15 to Hild Bede. The Durham side were not rattled by their opponent’s improvement in play however and kept pressing with the game becoming quite even again, James heading into the final quarter down 26-20, a difficult but not impossible score to overcome. James again started strongly and reduced Hild Bede’s lead again to 26-22, again hinting a remarkable comeback could be on the cards, however at such a late stage in the match every shot become important and some vital misses form the York College allowed Durham to increase their lead and close in on their victory.
A string of goals saw both teams finish strongly but some missed shots and rouge passes from James proved costly as the match ended with Hild Bede beating them 37-31. After the match’ James captain Ellie Redwood was happy with her team’s performance, ‘It was a really really great game, it was amazing the girls pulled it back and I’m very proud of both teams’.