Namibia beat Tanzania in seventh to ninth position play-off

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The national senior women’s netball team, the Debmarine Desert Jewels narrowly beat Tanzania 46-45 on Friday at the University of Pretoria (Tuks) Rembrandt Hall.

Namibia, Tanzania and Eswatini are competing for positions seventh, eighth and ninth at the 2023 Africa Netball World Cup qualifiers underway in Pretoria, South Africa.

Namibia who already beat Tanzania in their Pool A fixture once again squared off in the first match that was played on Friday. Namibia took the lead in the match from the opening minutes of the first quarter.

With four minutes left in that quarter Tanzania came back into the game to cut down Namibia’s five points lead to two at the end of that quarter with Namibia giving away several turnovers balls in a quarter that ended 13-11.

In the second quarter, Namibia saw their two-point lead vanish at the start of the quarter as the more determined Tanzania took the lead of the game just five minutes into that second quarter.

Tanzania then started leading the game with three points in the second quarter but the Namibian team managed to work themselves back into the game and took the lead to end the quarter 24-22 at halftime.

The third quarter of the game saw the Namibian girls making passing errors as well as losing some turnover balls but they still managed to score points and extended their lead to five points with the quarter ending 35-30.

The final quarter of the match was Tanzania’s after the Namibian team made several unforced errors with wrong passes which brought Tanzania back in the game and levelled the score.

Namibia only managed to regain the lead with just three seconds left in the game through a turnover ball that saw their goal scorer and player of the match Anna Kasper scoring a crucial and winning goal for the team as the match ended 46-45.

Namibia’s next match at the championship will be against Eswatini on Friday afternoon at 17h00.

Source: The Namibian Press Agency