The senior national netball team, the ‘Desert Jewels’, on Friday brushed off Kenya to win their second match at the Africa Netball Cup underway in Windhoek.
Namibia, who won their opening game of the competition Tuesday when they beat their neighbours Botswana, failed to collect maximum points in two of their fixtures – against Zimbabwe and Uganda.
In their fourth fixture at the championship, the home team faced Kenya in front of a handful of spectators.
The Desert Jewels led the first quarter 18-9 and the second quarter saw their nine-point lead reduced with a single point to an eight point lead, with that quarter ending 30-22 in their favour.
After the halftime break the Namibians continued with their dominance, playing fast-paced balls, and increasing their lead to 10 points which they maintained during the whole of the third quarter.
Namibia’s dominance of the third quarter was challenged when the quarter approached its end, with their opponents intercepting some of their plays and converting most of their goals from turnover balls to end it 43-32 for Namibia.
The last quarter of the match saw Kenya regrouping and intercepting most of Namibia’s plays. The Kenyans applied more pressure on the Namibian defence who then started making unforced errors, landing Namibia’s goal defence Monica Gomases in the sin bin and leading to Namibia reduced to six players halfway through the match.
Despite being a player down, Namibia maintained their composure and scored crucial points that kept them in the lead despite their lead being reduced from 11 points to six.
The Desert Jewels hung on to win the match 52-46.
In an interview with Nampa after the match, Namibia’s coach Julene Meyer said what they wanted to do in the match was to use their speed, which did not work out as planned because their opponents caught them out.
“We are happy with the win, all we need now is to work on our defence, discipline as well as game plans for upcoming matches,” she said.
Namibia’s next match in the championships will be at 15h00 on Saturday against Tanzania.
Source: The Namibian Press Agency
