The Illawarra Academy of Sport Netball Squad had a fantastic three day of action last week as 12 Academies came together to contest the inaugural Australian Invitational Youth Games (AIYG), Greater Bank Netball Tournament (formally the NIB Games) in Maitland from Wednesday to Friday, 13-15 July. The squad competed in both competition divisions at Maitland Federation Sports Centre and was among several RAS sports which took part in the AIYG event alongside golf, rugby union, athletics, duathlon, softball and swimming permitting these sports to compete at which higher level and against teams of similar strengths within NSW. The Games provided our athlete squad and umpires further opportunity to turn the programs acquired skills and knowledge into oncourt application, performing well in terms of balance of teams, and competitiveness. Division one team, commenced the games with their competition performance highlight with a confident win against Sydney Netball Academy in Round 1, following on with narrow losses to Hunter (-2) and Southern Sport (-1). Tasked with backing up to their unquestionably toughest rounds was day 2 – the team played 4 strong matches coming away with two further wins and two losses. Regaining momentum team one came home on day 3 taking two of the final three matches, finishing the games a respectable 5th. Commendations to Team one for continual strive for competitive match play throughout the tournament. The Division two team entered the tournament finding their feet early, ending day 1 with a positive undefeated. Alike Team One, the Division 2 team backed up to tough rounds Day 2 seeing their match play end with 1 win and 2 losses, Day 3 saw the sides spirit and unity shine from the sideline, with strong contesting of ball, solid leads and finding high ball placement inside the circle, the side completed Day 3 unfeated, and placed a strong 5th – marginally missing 4th position by 3 points. Overall Western Sydney Academy of Sport (WSAS) took the honours in Division 1 while Sydney Netball Academy (SNA) were winners in Division 2. The IAS coaching staff would like to acknowledge the squad for their strong court performances, detail to preparations, and maturity whilst on tour and throughout the demanding Games.
