In the premier grade, top qualifiers St Mary’s A will take on St Peter’s College while Wyndham faces Pioneer Red.
St Mary’s A finished top of the table having just the one loss, going down to Pioneer Red in the second round.
St Peter’s College finished fourth on the table after two rounds but finished the regular play in style with something of an upset win, beating Pioneer Red 35-33 on Saturday.
The win came from an excellent final quarter for St Peter’s College.
The team scored 12 goals in the last quarter while Pioneer could only score four as the school team powered to victory.
St Peter’s College A coach Hemaima Eichstaedt said her side lifted itself on Saturday and the whole team clicked.
She said the team just dug in the last quarter and showed hunger to end up on top.
Shooter Emma Donnelly had a game to remember with a shooting percentage above 90%.
The team needed to work hard right throughout the court this week, she said, and they had been improving throughout the season.
The side was relatively young with four year 13 players.
The side has the South Island secondary schools championships in Dunedin to look forward to at the end of the month.
Pioneer Red had been on the rise and managed to give St Mary’s A its only loss, beating the side 25-24 last month.
Wyndham and Pioneer Red have shared their two games with a win apiece.
Wyndham had a quite convincing win back in May with a 36-17 victory but Pioneer coming back to take a 31-30 victory last month.
Wyndham have improved from last year where they finished top of the bottom four when there were eight teams in the top grade. This has dropped to six this year.
stephen.hepburn@alliedmedia.co.nz
The two teams are evenly matched. Wyndham has been second in the grade for most of the year. The side has been linking well throughout the season and most of the side are injury-free going into the business end of the season.
Pioneer coach Gary Breen said the side was treating last week’s loss as a blip.
Finals netball was all about performing on the day and the games between the teams in the regular season were almost irrelevant.
The key on Saturday was ball retention and possession. It was about trusting each other and moving the ball through the court.
He said any one of the four teams in the semifinals could win it, which made for an exciting finals series.
