Last week Penola Netball club celebrated Sponsors Day, with sponsorship coordinator Tayla McKeon pulling together another successful day that she created for the club’s much valued sponsors.

The club took on Border Districts, with plenty of tough matches played.

The 13C the girls all got to play in their favourite positions, which meant lots of smiles throughout the game.

They all had their own personal goals and there were lots of intercepts in defence and attacking led well down the court.

Ane’ won the coaches award with her excellent shooting and defence rebounding.

The 13B girls were given specific goals and to their coaches’ delight they worked tirelessly to meet them.

There has been a big focus in attack on movement and meeting the ball and the girls continue to build on these skills.

Defensively the focus was on shadow defence and body position for rebounds.

This paid off with the girls gaining many turnovers.

Best players were Emmie Copping and Sophie Pearce.

The 13A girls came out firing with strong defensive pressure across the court and beautiful drive into the circle throughout the first half of the game.

The second half saw Borders turn up the heat, unfortunately a few forced errors and strong windy conditions for Penola’s goalies made it tough to keep up, going down by 10, despite the defenders worked tirelessly all game.

Best players were Evie Tilby and Ava Briggs.

Division 3 had an evenly matched game with all girls giving their all.

There were great passages of play, with both attack and defensive pressure.

It was great to hear voices on the court.

Best players were Kirra Pitt and Alida Brokken.

The Division 2 girls all played well despite the scoreline.

There was good passages of play, plenty of pressure over the ball and good reading of the play.

Best players were Nellie Lear and Shelley Crawford.

The Division 1 game started off quite slow with neither team really making much ground against each other in the first quarter.

Penola stepped it up in the second with some improved defensive turnovers by Tess Porter and Stella O’Brien and some good movement in the circle by Heidi Berkin and Tegan Lythgo.

In the third quarter Border Districts managed to capitalise from a few turnovers by Penola bringing the score back to within nine.

In the final quarter changes in positions for Penola helped a little but Borders kept pushing forward.

To the Penola girls’ credit they continued to fight and managed to hold off the onslaught from Border Districts by three points.

Best players were Heidi Berkin and Tess Porter.

The C grade had a firing start with plenty of pressure over Borders to make for a nice lead early.

Movement from Stella and Eva allowed for Leanne and Chicago to feed the ball in well.

Centre court drives made the ball convert from defence to attack smoothly.

Defensively the girls worked tirelessly to put pressure on the very accurate goalies.

Middle game pressure got to the girls but they lifted and converted several turnovers to increase Penola’s lead.

Stella gave a solid four quarters in goals with Lucy working tirelessly at the defensive end.

Best players were Stella O’Brien and Lucy Catlin.

The B grade girls knew they were up against some tough competition this week and they had to start the game well.

Luckily they did just that and finished the first quarter up by nine.

With a few changes to the Borders line up leading into the second quarter Penola only managed to extend the lead by two.

A few changes to the Eagles and a lot more pressure from Borders saw Penola lose the third quarter with only a five goal difference.

Penola was able to reset and head into the last quarter keeping their heads high and taking back control of the game.

Sarah and Teegan shot most opportunities they were given, Ava and Jess ran strong providing accurate feeding and Lauren, Jade and Caitlin continued to provide pressure to Border Districts’ goalies to cause many turnovers.

Overall Penola needed a strong game like this one in order to prepare for finals and to show areas they need to improve on.

Best players were Jade Lythgo and Caitlin Eason.

Penola’s A Reserve side had a solid day out in blustery conditions.

There were some great link up passages of play from defence to attack, along with solid defence from Sophie and Kim in the circle.

Sally’s drive was welcomed back and combined well with Tara and Tess through the middle.

Karly and Kasey worked hard for possession and finished well to seal the lead.

Best players were Sophie Schulz and Tess Porter.

It was a much anticipated A grade clash between second spot Penola and third spot Border Districts.

The Eagles got off to a shaky start as April Possingham uncharacteristically missed her first four shots of the game.

Nevertheless she persisted and showed her movement back in GS has plenty of versatility and the margin became four goals at quarter time.

The battle between Siobhan Adams and Poppy Moyle-Reed was fierce and Siobhan was dominant hitting the circle edge and feeding with precision until early in the second quarter when she had an unfortunate fall and hit her head on the asphalt, suffering concussion and unable to return to the game.

Tara Millard then entered the battle at centre.

Brooke Klemm and her deceivingly long arms caused havoc for Borders’ Emma Hausler and sister Hannah Klemm was making it extremely hard for her opponent to find space.

Tayla Solly back in GK was tough and pulled in some balls and Borders managed to convert some of their turnovers but the score remained the same at the half time break.

In the third, the Eagles pushed on with some fantastic movement in the goal circle by Tegan Lythgo as she stood up and converted well taking the lead out to eight at the last break.

The last quarter was an even affair with Tara Millard driving hard to circle edge and April Possingham was solid holding in the front space well.

Chelsea Galpin made Kelsey Moyle-Reed earn any shot she was able to take in the goal circle as she covered her movement well and forced her to shoot long.

The Eagles finished well holding onto their eight goal lead which leaves them in second spot.

Best players were Brooke and Hannah Klemm