By Tara Murray
Lancefield is hoping to keep the momentum going after locking in its squads for next year’s Riddell District Netball League season.
The Tigers made massive inroads this year under coach Ciara Stewart, closing the gap between them and the top sides.
All but two players will return to the Tigers for next season across all grades, while they’ve added additional numbers.
Stewart said they were really excited about what they could achieve.
“We’re pretty pleased to have maintained every player bar two,” she said. “One is taking a year off and the second is going back to play in under-17s.
“We’ve recruited enough players that we will have teams of 10 in every grade. The hard work that Kerry [Hammond] had done had mention we’ve been able to get some players across.”
One of the Tigers biggest challenges this year was having many of their players back up in A and B-grade every week.
Stewart said it would be good to see the girls not have to back up each week.
“We were able to match it with the top teams and were in front at three quarter time in a lot of games,” she said. “Then we died of a slow death in the final quarter. The players put out the effort but ran out of legs.
“They were exhausted after playing two whole games.
“We are foreshadowing that it won’t be a problem next year.”
The Tigers A-grade side will have a lot of familiar faces with eight playing regularly in A-grade this season.
Stewart said this off season was about filling the gaps that they needed.
Tarnee Hammond, who won the league B-grade shooting award this year, will just play in A-grade next season. Stewart said with only one game they were hoping she would have an even greater impact.
Bella Collodetti, who was injured early in the season, before playing in B-grade late in the season will play in A-grade as well.
Chloe Hodgson, who won the club’s women’s football best and fairest award this year, is returning to the netball court and will be part of the squad.
Tyla Evans, who used to play for Gisborne, returns to the court after not having played since 2019 and rounds out the squad.
Stewart said every player had to trial to see which side they were in.
They’ve already hit the court.
“We’ve done two sessions already just to get to around each other,” she said. “We’ll have a camp in February and it’s good that everyone already got their spots locked in.
“They get along so well and with more people at training we’ve been running drills we weren’t able to last season.
“We’ve been able to hit the ground running.”
