Young Elephants shine

Independence Trophy tournament which started yesterday at the Chitungwiza Aquatic Complex.
The three-day tournament is catering for both men and women and is set to end tomorrow.
The men’s category features eight teams divided into two groups with group A made up of Big Elephants, Young Elephants, Tough Tacklers and Glendale Stars while Group B is consists of Black Rhinos, Black Panthers, Hard Shots and Daramombe from Mt Darwin.
The women’s category is made up of six teams – Behind Queens, Black Rhinos, Black Panthers, Glendale, Hardshots and Big Elephants – and the matches are being played in a round robin format.
Young Elephants Club beat Big Elephants 10-6 while Hardshots overpowered Black Panthers 12- 11 in a tightly contested match. In the women’s category Big Elephants defeated Daramombe 10-6 and the matches are being played in a round-robin format.
Organising secretary for the event, Benard Muzanenhamo, said most of the teams that had confirmed their participation failed to turn up due to financial problems.
“We have 14 teams participating as most of the teams failed to come because of financial constraints.
“In the future we are going to have provincial championships first and the winning team in each province will represent their province so that the province can help them raise the funds to take part in national championships.
“The foreign clubs we had invited have also failed to come with Zambia citing financial problems while Mozambique have said they want to bring in their national teams after this tournament since they are preparing for the All-Africa Games and can not afford to send their clubs,” said Muzanenhamo.
However, Muzanenhamo was impressed with the level of competition despite a low turnout by the clubs.
“The level of competition, especially in the men’s category, is very high and in the women’s category we have four strong teams,” said Muzanenhamo. The tournament continues today with the clubs set to finish their group stages matches while the semi-finals are scheduled for tomorrow.

The top four teams in the women’s category will progress to the semi-finals while in the men’s category the top two teams in each group will battle it out in the semi-finals.