East Gippsland Specialist School has been crowned the inaugural All Abilities Netball Schools Champions (Eastern Region) with a close win over Baringa Specialist School.
The mixed netball carnival held at Gippsland Regional Sports Complex featured 8 teams from 5 specialist schools across the Gippsland region. Despite strong winds, the netball skills and match play on display was of the highest quality and was especially impressive given many of the players had not played netball competitively before.
Winners East Gippsland Specialist School benefited from 3 weeks of netball training with Netball Victoria’s Sporting Schools coach, Amy Harrison leading up to the carnival as part of overall All Abilities Schools netball initiative from Netball Victoria and GippSport.
Netball Victoria Community Development Manager, Kiemi Lai, hailed the support of GippSport and the five schools across the region in making the day a success.
“It was great to All Abilities netball showcased at our Schools Championships,” Lai said.
“It was good to see all the hard work done in the background from Gippport and our Eastern Regional Development Team pay off today…There were some talented players playing and given a little more encouragement, I believe they could play in our Marie Little Shield Team (Victorian State Netball Team for people with intellectual disabilities) in the near future.”
It is hoped the All Abilities Netball Schools Carnival will be an annual event on the schools’ sports calendar and will grow to include more students with disabilities from mainstream and specialist schools across the region in the future.
Netball Victoria will also be hosting All Abilities Netball Schools Championships in Wangaratta and Werribee over the coming weeks.
Final Results
1st vs 2nd playoff: East Gippsland Red (7) defeated Baringa Specialist School (5)
3rd vs 4th: East Gippsland Green (1) defeated Sale & District Specialist School (0)
5th vs 6th: Sale & District Specialist School (3) defeated East Gippsland Yellow (0)
Equal 7th: South Gippsland Specialist School & Bass Coast Specialist School
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