The Spar South African netball team claimed their second victory of the world championships with a 55-38 win over the USA in Kingston, Jamaica, on Monday.
It wasa slightly altered Protea side that took to the court against the team ranked eight places beneath them in the world standings, with Manzo Machoga as shooter, Danlee Booysen at wing attack and Adri Vlok as wing defense.
The South Africans showed their intentions right from the start, scoring three times before the Americans could put points on the board.
From that point on, the Proteas never allowed their opponents to steal the lead at any stage of the game and the first quarter ended with the score on 14-7.
With the Americans’ game standard much lower than that of the Jamaican team they lost to on Sunday, the South Africans were able to play a much faster game. But at times this meant they almost got ahead of themselves, making silly mistakes and allowing the US to restrict them to only scoring eight goals in the second quarter which finished on 22-16.
At the half time break, South Africa’s star shooter Sindy Gumede replaced Machoga while Adele Jonker came on for captain Elsje Jordaan at goal attack.
In the third quarter the Proteas finally got some momentum going, scoring eight unanswered goals and pulling away from their opponents, finishing the 15 minutes 14 points ahead at 40-26.
The fourth quarter was simply a matter of going through the motions and by the final whistle the South Africans had extended their lead to 17 points, Gumede’s goal in the last second of the game sealed the South Africans victory by 55 points to 38.
SA coach, Marlene Wagner said after the game that she had hoped her team would reach 60 points.
”We worked very well from the beginning and we built from there. Generally I was very pleased with the team’s performance today,” she said.
”At times they came up with some beautiful and brilliant moves,†she added, explaining that she had instructed the players to hold back slightly in the last quarter in order to conserve energy for their next game which will be the toughest of their campaign so far, as it is against world champions Australian. – Sapa