COMPETITION leaders New Kids Aces will take on Uranquinty in the feature game of the Wagga Senior Netball competition on Saturday.
Uranquinty shared top billing with the Aces up until last Saturday when they lost to Shooting Stars. To that stage neither team had lost a game.
While the young Quinty team surrendered a three quarter time lead to go down to the Stars, the Aces were comprehensively beating the CSU Reddies, in a game which produced possibly the highest score in the many years of the competition.
The fact that the Aces’ win was attained without three of their better players in Rachael Addison, Lisa Reynoldson and Marie Campbell spells more fears for the challengers.
Addison will miss a few more games with her injury, but there’s every likelihood that Reynoldson and Campbell will again be available, allowing coach Naomi Hocker to return to retirement and a non-playing role.
Uranquinty were without their goal shooter Jessica Allen last Saturday, but if she returns Uranquinty will be at their strongest.
They have been given good service by goal keeper Rachael Creasy, centre Olivia Tilyard and shooters, Stacey Curran and Lana Duffy, who substituted for Allen, have been converting well.
There’s no doubt the Uranquinty youngsters have risen to the task of playing in the top grade and have started the season really well, but up against a good mix of youth and seasoned players as in the Aces, could bring about Uranquinty’s second loss in as many weeks.
Meantime, Panthers have a chance of strengthening their hold on a top four spot when they meet CSU Reddies on Saturday.
The Panthers celebrated their first win of the season last week when they recovered from a slow start to score an eight-goal win over Turvey Park.
Their shooters, Danielle Lane, Viv Murnane and Bonnie Higgins are very accurate and Reddies defenders Sam George and Nicki Guttler will have to be at their best to stop their conversion.
At the opposite end, Amanda Plum and Leanne Harmer are solid defenders for Panthers, who come up against an equally sharp-shooting pair in the Reddies Hannah Williams and Breanne Cusack, so it could well be that the Panthers’ centre court players, Kate Garrett, Kirsty Lowe and Sandra Skaf will swing the game the Panthers’ way.
In the third match of the round, bottom team Turvey Park will tackle the in-form Shooting Stars.
While Turvey Park are yet to win a game they have been competitive in their experimental rebuilding phase and look to improve each week.
In the possible absence of centre Kat Fisher, who was injured in last week’s game, Emily Clout, unavailable last week, is likely to fill her role, whilst Grace Carmichael is sure to return to the shooting circle with the unavailability of Taylah Cox.
The Stars with players such as Jemima Norbury, Michelle Forrell and Jenee West look to have too much fire power for Turvey.
