Comfortable win for stars on grudge match

The much-anticipated ‘grudge match’ between the Kingdom Stars and the Limpopo Baobabs was something of a damp squib as the Stars overpowered the Baobabs 55 – 40 in their playoff for seventh place in the Brutal Fruit Netball Premier League at the Mangaung Indoor Sports Arena on Sunday.

The teams drew their round robin match 43-all, but the Stars showed from the start that that would not happen again. They took the lead early on, and maintained the pressure throughout. The Baobabs shared the second quarter, 12 goals each, but were unable to repeat that. The Stars led 27-22 at halftime.

In the final quarter, Baobabs coach Dumisani Chauke threw caution to the wind, and made wholesale changes, bringing on her younger players. The Stars took advantage of this, and won the quarter 17-9.

“We were chasing the whole game, and at the start of the final quarter, I decided to give everyone a chance,” said Chauke.

“I wanted to give the younger players a taste of playing in an important match.”

She said she was happy with the overall performance of the Baobabs throughout the tournament.

“Our goal was to improve our position by one, but we improved it by two,” she said.

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“We are rewriting the Baobabs’ story, match by match, quarter by quarter.”

Madrilien Maritz, the Stars coach, said the difference between the round robin match and the playoff was the team spirit that had developed as the tournament continued.

“Also, our goalshooters, Elsunet du Plessis and Nonhlanhla Shezi, were both on song and had a great game together,” she said.

“It’s disappointing that we have dropped from fifth place to seventh, which is why we will start preparing for next year in two weeks time.”

The Mpumalanga Sunbirds had a runaway victory over the Northern Cape Diamonds in the playoff for ninth place, beating them 49-16. The Diamonds were just two goals behind at the end of the first quarter (7-5), but from then on it was one-day traffic.

Sunbirds coach Marlie Nel said her team had improved throughout the tournament.

“I am very proud that of the bottom five teams, we were the only ones to finish within 20 goals of the Golden Fireballs,” she said.

“We can only improve from here on.”

despondent Diamonds coach, Maria Maiya, said the province needed to examine its selection policies.

“I think we should possibly look at bringing in a couple of players from other provinces to add the necessary experience,” she said.

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“We also need more financial support from the Northern Cape government. The Northern Cape is a big province and the girls have to travel long distances, and often have to pay out of their own pockets to travel to practices.”

The tournament wraps up next weekend when the North West Flames, the Golden Fireballs, the Gauteng Jaguars and the Southern Stings fight it out to decide the new Brutal Fruit champion.