Kenya women’s Netball national youth team jetted back in the country in the wee hours of Monday morning with lots of lessons learned from the just concluded World Youth Netball Cup Africa Qualifiers in South Africa.
They ranked at position five out of the seven countries that participated in the continental event.
Speaking on Monday after dismissing her contingent back to their clubs and schools, Kenya Netball Federation ( KNF ) chairperson Immaculate Kabutha was optimistic that the country’s future is now even brighter with the under 21s, saying that her administration now will go back to the drawing board and come up with a map and structures that will ensure continuity with more national and international exposures to the young women that did Kenya proud in Pretoria.
” They have done us proud, together with my team I am very happy. We have many challenges in Kenya while developing netball which is an indoor sport, but with more international competitions, these young women will get used to the atmosphere and as a result we are going to have a strong national senior team when they graduate from youth level,” said an excited Kabutha adding that it was important that the team be maintained and occasionally will be summoned for training camps.
Kenya begun their World Youth Cup dream on Sunday 17th March against Zimbabwe, but lost 49-39, a day after jetting in to South Africa and had to acclimatize to the modern facilities used in the Rembrandt Hall, University of Pretoria where the event took place.
The George Adoyo led charges were in action again on Tuesday for a crunch double header with hosts South Africa who beat them by 70-16 in the morning and later tried to play catch up against Malawi in the afternoon, but fell short 44-38.
Senior national team captain Parin Simiyu assisted Adoyo at the technical bench and had to motivate the team for Wednesday’s tie against Zambia, but unfortunately fatigue seemed to have creeped in leading them to lose 52-32.
Simiyu managed to rejuvenate the youngsters who came out fighting on Thursday, but unfortunately could not win as Namibia forced a 44-44 full time draw.
After those results, it was obvious that Kenya had kissed their world cup dream goodbye and now had to play for pride, an idea that proved itself right when they mauled neighbors Tanzania 44-25 on Friday to qualify for the fifth and sixth place playoff finish on Saturday.
On that fateful afternoon, a day that Kenyans knew it was their last outing at the prestigious modern arena of the Rembrandt Hall, Namibia would turn out to be their opponents, with memories of missed opportunities, hard luck, toil, failed ambitions and sweat.
Adoyo and company gnashed their teeth as chills of fear ran down their spines only to jump up, fists in the air to celebrate Kenya’s win of 50-42 at the last whistle as they cemented their fifth place on the continental rankings.
Namibia came in sixth as neighbors Tanzania finished last at position seven while hosts South Africa claimed top position to qualify directly for the World Youth Cup come August in Gibraltar 2025
Malawi finished second to also join South Africa next year in Gibraltar, as Zambia and Zimbabwe came in position third and fourth respectively.
The global event in Gibraltar will take place next year in August at the Tercentenary Sports Hall and Europa Sports Park, which was recently upgraded to International standards.
