Unstoppable SPAR Baby Proteas Strike Again

The U21 South African side steamrolled their opponents Israel by a whopping 130 goals in their second match of the World Youth Netball Championships, in Glasgow, Scotland, on Sunday evening, as the team built on a good opening round win to solidify their tournament aspirations.

(Click to read the junior SPAR Proteas team announcement, the tournament preview and the Match 1 report on gsport)

The junior SPAR Proteas had launched their World Youth Netball Championships search for gold in perfect style on Saturday – beating the dangerous Fiji 64-32 in their opening encounter, and with their follow-up win over Israel, have practically qualified for the tournament’s knock-out stages.

Despite using this match as an opportunity to rest a few players, SA were way ahead of their Israeli counterparts. “This wasn’t my first choice line-up,” said coach Dorette Badenhorst after the match, “But the team played well and put in a good effort.”

South Africa were out to meet targets set by their coach and they blasted through the first quarter to score an amount of goals worthy of a full game; 37. Israel had not scored at all.

By the time the half-time whistle blew, South Africa had almost doubled their score to 64 goals, whilst the girls in white and blue had only scored one. However, the Israeli team kept their spirits high, and remained energised throughout the match.

At the end of the third quarter, the SPAR Baby Proteas had scored 100 goals to Israel’s one, something that could also be attributed to the massive height difference in goal circle players. South Africa’s goal keeper Kefiloe Tsotsetsie measures up at 196cm, whilst Israel’s goal shooter Chava Neeman is a mere 155cm, giving Neeman a near impossible task of receiving high feeds.

The final quarter continued in a similar vein, as the SPAR Baby Proteas continued to dominate, defeating Israel 134-4.

Always keen to take lessons from each game, Coach Dorette Badenhorst is hoping the players will correct a few things before the next big clash against Namibia on Tuesday. “There are still a lot of things that we can improve on,” said Badenhorst after the match, “We still need to work on our timing, good ball placement, and stronger passing.”

South Africa play fellow African’s Namibia at 17h15 Glasgow time, on Monday before completing their Pool A fixtures against the group’s top-rated side, Australia on Tuesday.

(Editorial: Planet Netball / BLD Communications, with editing by gsport)