Namibia finishes third in Pent series

Namibia finished above Botswana and last-placed Swaziland in the final rankings, although champions Zimbabwe and runners-up Zambia dominated proceedings.The Namibians narrowly lost yesterday's last match of the tournament against Botswana (40-38), with coach Manuel Tjivera reiterating the importance of the need to regularly expose the country's top players to such international competitions.Tjivera's statement that the Namibian players have shown improvement as the tournament progressed, was supported by some of the captains and coaches of opposing teams.Namibia convincingly won their opening match against Swaziland last Wednesday (51-34), before falling short against a determined Zambia (45-53).In their third match, Zimbabwe outclassed the Namibians – leading by 21-6, 35-13 and 49-27 on their way to a runaway 57-33 victory.The higher ranked nations such as Zimbabwe and Zambia are now setting their sights on preparing for the qualifying campaign for next year's Commonwealth Games to be held in Australia.About yesterday's defeat against Botswana, coach Tjivera said: “I think the girls started out making quite a number of errors. Maybe the nerves caught up with them. We are working with a squad of 30 players and we need to keep exposing all of them in order to be more competitive.“We will keep training now and we should once again compete in the Africa Cup to be held in Uganda. We need to play regularly against teams of this quality.“This tournament has given us a lot of valuable lessons to work on.”Tjivera reserved praise for the Namibian goalkeeper Cherlyn Muese as the most consistent player for the team.Zimbabwe also beat Botswana (52-40) and Zambia on their way to winning the DebMarine Pent series title.During the closing ceremony, sports commission chief administrator Freddy Mwiya expressed appreciation to the tournament's sponsors, organising committee and match officials that ensured a successful return of competitive netball to benefit Namibian netball.

Namibia finishes third in Pent series

Comments

Namibian Sun 2025-04-03

Please login to leave a comment

Namibia finishes third in Pent series

Comments

Namibian Sun 2025-04-03

Please login to leave a comment

Login