St MATTHEW'S College still had a chance of making it through to the semi-finals of the lower North Island secondary schoolgirls netball tournament in Napier after the end of pool play and the first round of cross section play. They opened strongly with a handsome 42-18 win over Woodford, overcoming earlynerves to lead by 17-11 at the end of the second quarter. From there it was pretty much one way traffic with St Matthew's dominating all areas of the game. An individual highlight was the accurate shooting of Sophie Ross and the team's defensive work was also outstanding. Second up St Matthew's met defending champions and top seeds Tu Toa, and a competitive first quarter saw St Matthew's trailing by just three goals at the break. It was a different story in the second quarter though with St Matthew's guilty of making mistakes under pressure and Tu Toa capitalising. With the defence pairing of Ella Biggs and Ashley McDougall in fine form St Matthew's made a better first of the third quarter, which they actually "won" 11-8, but again Tu Toa called the tune in the fourth and final quarter to score a 43-28 victory. The last game in pool play for St Matthew's was against St Joseph's of Napier and St Matthew's were always in control, winning 31-13. They led 10-3 at the end of the first quarter and with Harriet Somerville at centre and Ella Biggs at goal defence as their spearheads, they picked up a number of intercepts to regularly turn over possession. That win took St Matthew's into the top 16 of the A grade section, and the first game in cross section play was against New Plymouth Girls High. The first half was evenly enough contested, although New Plymouth led 16-10 at that stage and a failure to take full toll of their scoring chances marred the St Matthew's effort in the second spell, New Plymouth going on to win 34-20. St Matthew's were to play St Orans and St Peters in their last two crossover games to determine which teams went through to the semi-finals.
