Netball By Mrs Jones, Head of Netball This is the second year that New Hall has entered teams at both U16 and U14 age group in the Essex Netball Knock-Out cup. Over 55 teams from Essex enter this netball competition and the Essex schools in particular are renowned for their high standard at national level. The New Hall U16 team, already having beaten St Mark’s School, Harlow and William Edward’s in Grays faced Brentwood School in the fourth round. It was a tough match and the girls faced challenging opposition. Their performance was a credit to the school and despite narrowly losing, the New Hall team never gave up and should be congratulated for their skilful and determined performance in this match. The U14 New Hall team went one better and beat Mark Hall, Musselborough to reach the quarter final. They faced Coopers Coburn School in what was a fast and physical game. This is the first time that a New Hall team has reached this stage of the competition and they should be congratulated for this achievement. New Hall performed well in the District Netball tournaments this year. Our U12 team reached the semi final of the competition, losing to Great Baddow, the eventual winners in a great contest. The U13 having beaten Boswells in a riveting semi final game were runners up to Great Baddow by just four goals. The U13 team played amazingly well and deserved to reach this stage in the competition. The U16 teams and U14 teams came third in their district competitions, all team members giving committed performances. The wealth of talented netball players is very pleasing to see and several girls have achieved regional, county, county plus or satellite development status. Phoebe Kent (Year 12) is a regional netball player. Ellie McCaffrey (Year 10), Freya Pelling (Year 10), Lucy Cracknell (Year 10) and Amelia Davison (Year 10) have all played at county level and Jessica Whiley (Year 7) was recently selected for the County Development squad.
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