adminVeronica Gwaze
CORRECTIONAL Queens’ Goal Shooter Tafadzwa Mawango ‘s netball world cup experiences are bearing fruit after shooting her side to a 71-33 victory over Air force side Falcon Queens at Manyame Airbase.
The tall shooter scooped the golden hand award with 51 shots.
And Prison Side Physical Training Coach Edward Zamira commended Mawango acknowledging that the Gem has made a remarkable improvement.
“As you know charity begins at home, Mawango is a total package that contains everything from discipline to the court.
“Her experiences at the Gems camp, the world cup combined with the club is actually paying off great results as you can see, she is no longer that old player many knew,” he said.
In the match that started off with a scare as the Air force side seemed in fine form to make an early 4-1 lead, Correctional Queens however maintained their composure.
Having to come from behind, experience came in handy to the Prison side being one of the teams that supplies most players to the national team.
By half time they led 38-19.
Introducing several changes after the breather, Falcon Queens lost some chances to missed shots and unforced errors.
Lacking depth of players, endurance and physical fitness the changes could not yield results as the gap widened to a 38 margin by fulltime.
Zamira commended his charges for sticking to game plan.
“The game was just good and in the first quarter, the team proved to be strong in terms of skills and the setup of the coaches.
“if you check, the first scores, they beat us 4-1 and we had to recover from behind so as we progressed, it proved that fitness pays as well because the further the clock ticked, the more they were gaining goal differences.
“Today we had two players that took part at the world cup, it could have been an advantage since it is a psychological game but overally they worked as a team,” he said.
Despite the absence of renowned Goal Defender Felistas Kwangwa who joined Platinum Queens on loan, the gaffer said he has enough player depth to defend the league title.
Falcon Queens Coach, Brian Kadzinga blamed his charges defeat on lack of endurance, fitness and inadequate pre-season preparations.
“We played against a better side that has enough depth and us on the other hand we do not have a lot of players but we fought hard enough.
“Experience and endurance played most of the game in favour of Correctional and I acknowledge that their coach is good as well, tactically.
“He read our game and pounced just like that, unfortunately due to lack of depth we had no choice,” said the coach.
He also bemoaned the absence of their key player Tafadzwa Matura who emerged as 2019 player of the season at Rainbow Netball Amatuer League.
Matura is away attending a work course and will only bounce back in the second half of the season.
Online Reporter