Macedon fell at the last hurdle in its hunt for A-grade gold in the Riddell District Netball League grand final.
After defeating Riddell in the semi-finals, the Cats were confident they could match it with the Bombers on Sunday, but it wasn’t to be.
The Bombers proved too strong: 51-34.
Cats’ coaches Karri Ambler and Kelly Nicholas were still proud of the efforts put in by their players.
It’s no secret they had a disrupted season when coaches were switched mid-year.
“The girls have done really well to get here after everything that happened in the middle of the year,” Ambler said. “The spirits have been really high and they’ve done their best.
“Riddell were definitely determined and, credit to them, they won the game fair and square. We didn’t really bring our best.”
For the first quarter and a half, the margin between the two sides was around the three- goal mark.
While the Bombers made sure Bec Colwell was having a hard time of it under the ring, it was proving just as hard for Bombers’ star shooter Mikaela Vaughan.
The Cats decided to move their Victorian Netball League gaoler Kate McLeod out to goal defence to play on Vaughan, to try to match her height and reach.
“I think she did more than enough on Mikaela,” Ambler said.
“If you looked at her goaling, Kate had her most of the game
“Christine Harris absolutely smashed it.
“Tarryn Mackie did a fantastic job in the first final when we played against them and she would have outdone Christine that day. Unfortunately, today, it was reversed.”
The Bombers’ experience started to show as the game wore on, and they slowly pushed the margin out.
They led by eight goals at half-time and had extended that to 15 goals at the last change.
The Cats didn’t give up and threw everything at the Bombers. They switched players around and brought players off the bench to try to get the right match-ups – with no luck.
“We had the options, so we thought we would give it go.”
Nicholas said there were still lots of positives going forward.
“The girls are still really young,” she said.
“There were about three who hadn’t played A-grade finals before this season.
“No one is over 30.
“Kate is 30 and everyone else is younger.
“Maddi Payne and Emmy Tebble are only 20,” Nicholas said.
“They are an awesome group.
“And we were saying that, out of the four teams, they have been the easiest for us coming into the club to coach.
“They are very united, a really nice group.”
