60 minutes of faultless netball is what the Tuks Netball girls will have to come up with if they want to win the Varsity Tournament for a third time.

This coming Monday night (18 September) on their home turf, the Rembrandt Hall, Tuks will face off against UJ in the final. Judging by the results, it is going to be a humdinger. UJ is one of only two teams to prevent Tuks from scoring 60 goals against them. Tuks won the pool game encounter 58-53.

From a Tuks perspective, seeing how the team has grown in confidence as the tournament progressed is undoubtedly exciting. The team has dominated their opponents in their last five games, scoring 60-plus goals each time.

On Monday night the Tuks girls outplayed the defending Varsity Champions, Maties, to win 61-33 in their semi-final clash. Apart from the first three minutes, there was no doubt about the result. Tuks dominated each facet of the game. By halftime, the score was already 41-22.

The Tuks players are not letting their on-court heroics get to their heads. Surprisingly, Alice Kennon (Tuks co-captain) views Monday night’s performance against Maties as far from perfect.

“Judging by the goal difference, it is logical to think we had a great game. But we did not. We made mistakes, especially when we were on the attack. We will realise that when we sit down to analyse the game,” she said in summary.

However, she is proud of her team’s achievement.

“We have put in a lot of hard work over the last few weeks. Nobody complained. As a team, we are united by one goal. It is to step up. We know what we want out of the competition. So, we have put our heads together and are going for the result. Next Monday, our challenge is to come as close as possible to playing perfect netball for 60 minutes. Doing so means we will have to work hard this week to ensure we don’t make the same mistakes we made in the game against Maties. If we succeed, it will be exciting to see the outcome,” Kennon explained.

Kennon is having a brilliant tournament as a goal shooter. Through her calm and collected approach, Tuks has scored the most goals in the tournament. Before Monday’s game against Maties, Kennon had scored 195 goals at an accuracy rate of 94%. She upped her goal tally against Maties by another 40 or so goals.

So, it is no surprise that Kennon has been nominated as one of the three players of the tournament. Danielle van Niewenhuysen (Maties) and Sanmarie Visser (Northwest) are the other two players who have been nominated.

Kamogela Maseko (Tuks co-captain) was the Player of the Match in Monday’s game against Maties. She usually plays wing defence, but she was switched to playing wing attack on Monday night. Maseko was brilliant.

“I made playing wing defence my trademark, but I am not one to shy away from any on-court challenge. So, when I was told to play wing attack, I went for a do-or-die approach,” Maseko remarked.

Tuks won the Varsity Tournament in 2017 and 2019. The fantastic thing about Tuks’ 2019 campaign was that they ended up unbeaten. The 2023 Tuks team has yet to lose.

Do you have more information about the story?

Please send us an email to editorial@rekord.co.za or phone us on 083 625 4114.

For free breaking and community news, visit Rekord’s websites: Rekord East

For more news and interesting articles, like Rekord on Facebook, follow us on Twitter or Instagram