Mavs Make Final
We are celebrating this week after reaching the final in our first tournament. The Mavericks travelled to Cambridge last Saturday to compete against other mixed teams who will also be taking part in this year's National League, which starts in March.
The New Year Tournament was a real test for us as we faced a clutch of experienced mixed squads, all of which included several England players. Mavericks weren't to be outdone however and despite missing England U25 Jacob Kirby, Jessie Cherrill (England Mixed) and Charlie Gray (England Men's) took to court in the day-long competition as part of our fourteen-strong team.
The day started with a round-robin, with all the teams playing each other in short, intense twenty-four-minute matches and Mavericks used this opportunity to give their whole squad time on court, whilst trying out some new combinations and testing playing partnerships before hitting the sharp end of the competition in the late afternoon.
After making it to the semi-final, Mavs came up against Unicorns, a London team who had just taken the win over us earlier in the day. However, this game saw us apply everything we had learned throughout the rest of the competition and from the outset, we looked dominant in all areas of the court.
In attack, Bea Barefield and Charlie Gray performed brilliantly, shooting accurately from anywhere in the circle. Barefield was exceptional, taking on taller male defenders without fear. In the second half of the match, Toby Garbett stepped in to shoot and his height allowed us to feed the ball from distance.
The midcourt of Chay February, Olivia Westerberg, Jessie Cherrill and Connor Sharod-Southam rotated seamlessly through positions, defending when needed but flying through court in attack with February, in particular, evading his opposite number time and time again.
In defence, Garbett, Sharod-Southam and Natalie Stacey were a force to be reckoned with and with Stacey making the calls, the pressure they applied to the Unicorns shooters won the Mavericks plenty of turnovers. At the final whistle, we took the win 16-10.
After waiting for the positional matches to finish, the last game of the day saw us take on Norfolk United and right from the first pass, it was clear that we had stepped up a gear.
Barefield, this time partnered in the shooting circle by Nardus Nel, shot more long-range goals while Nel's fast movement around the circle meant he too could always find space to shoot from.
In the midcourt, Hannah Trickey took some flying intercepts, winning possession for Mavericks from the Norfolk team while in defence, Stacey deserves particular credit as she moved to play Goal Keeper against Norfolk's towering shooter. Her tenacity and perfect court positioning were rewarded with a handful of tips and deflections as Norfolk suddenly found it much harder to deliver safe feeds to their shooters. At the half-time break, the scores were even.
The last quarter saw both teams work for the win with Garbett back on defence, Gray returning to partner Barefield in the shooting circle and Cherrill retaking a place in the midcourt. The speed of this final portion of play was impressive and despite Mavericks' best efforts, Norfolk just edged ahead in the last few minutes of the game to take the win by two goals.
Thames Mavericks mixed netball club playing in their first tournament
Speaking after the tournament, Cherrill said:
"I couldn't be prouder of the whole squad's performance today. Every game saw us improve and take what we'd learned in the previous games and apply it successfully in these short matches, where there's no time to ease yourself. Mavericks came out flying in every game and I'm so happy that our whole squad got time on court, particularly against such quality opposition. Having seen how much we can improve across just one day together means the next few months will be very exciting."
Cherrill was also selected into the Umpires’ ‘Team of the Tournament’ for her work at Wing Defence and the whole Mavs squad voted for their ‘Mavs of the Match’ with Bea Barefield, Chay February and Natalie Stacey taking the honours.
We take on more men's and mixed teams in February with games against more National League sides including Devon Dynamites, RAF, Newcastle, West Cheshire Warriors plus a 'Super Sunday', when they'll play three matches against Army later in the month.