As the wind halted flights across the South on Monday, several Columba netballers were left stranded in Queenstown as they tried to head to Auckland for the New Zealand secondary schools championships starting yesterday.
But the small group were still making their way north yesterday morning, the last player arriving just after 11am. The team were scheduled to play their opening game against Tawa at 9.30am.
It meant their early game was postponed until last night. Coach Lauren Piebenga hailed Netball New Zealand and Tawa College as "amazing" for helping them through the issues.
But it did leave Columba with another task: facing their toughest pool opponents, Saint Kentigern, first up.
Columba lost 36-25, but ran with Saint Kentigern — who won the national title in 2016 — for three quarters. The second quarter "blew out", as Columba lost that quarter by eight goals.
"There wasn’t much in it, the other three quarters," Piebenga said.
"I guess having that game rescheduled meant that we were into the toughest pool game straight off the bat.
"The physicality got us. We didn’t match them.
"They didn’t allow us to play our style of netball and we knew that going into the game was going to be difficult.
"Everybody gave it their best shot out there, but certainly we’ve learnt from that.
Columba bounced back last night to defeat Tawa College 44-36. They face Villa Maria in their final pool game this morning.
