Shizaella win Blantyre PIS Trophy, reach regional finals
Blantyre and Districts Netball League side Shizaella Sisters have booked their regional final place in the Presidential Initiative on Sports (PIS) competition after emerging champion for Blantyre urban level after beating Polytechnic 36-17 baskets on Sunday at Polytechnic netball court.
The competition which started on Saturday brought together a total 16 teams who were battling out to reach into the regional phase scheduled to take place next month.
Shizaella Sisters managed to reach into the final after beating Tigresses Babies in the semi finals while Polytechnic defeated Tropical Queens Reserve respectively.
Head coach for Shizaell, Jimmy Manjombe expressed delighted for being crowned champions which said it wasn’t an easy road considering to the number of teams who took part in the competition.
Manjombe further thanked her players for their fighting spirit displayed during the whole competition.
“It always feels good to be crowned champions and I need to salute my girls for putting up a gallant fight. Honestly, it wasn’t easy to win this trophy and we had no expectations of becoming victors since we were meeting with teams who are well sponsored compared to us. Now that we’ve emerged winners our main target now is to maintain this performance at regional and qualify to the national level,” said Manjombe.
His counterpart Mayamiko Phiri said he was not disappointed with the loss since it was their first time to reach into final since the competition was started.
“As Polytechnic i think we have achieved a lot as a team because apart from playing in the final our girls have shown a great improvement and am very hopeful that we will even do better at the regional level as well as the pending 2020 Rainbow Paints netball league,” said Phiri.
Blantyre and Districts Netball League (BDNL) Chairperson Junier Kazembe described the competition as very successful as it has managed to unearth hidden talent from young girls which she said have brighter future in as far as netball is concerned.
She said PIS is the good platform that can help to promote netball in Malawi as it is the only competition that gives opportunity to all the upcoming netball players to showcase their talents starting from grassroots level.
“We have discovered a lot of talent which could’ve not been noticed without this competition. It is our expectations that these young players will help our national teams in the coming years to do better since we will have a good transition and we just thank the Malawi Government for this competition,” said Kazembe.
For being champions Shizaella received K100 000 while Polytechnic got K70 000.
Tigresses Babies went home with and K50 000 whereas Tropical Queens Reserve pocketed K30 000 for finishing on third and fourth position respectively.
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