The Northern Gold Coast Netball Association’s 18 Gold team, one of 185 girls and 13 boys teams that took part in the four-day competition at Brisbane’s Western Districts Netball Association (WDNA), claimed the 18 Championship Division title with 17 wins from 17 games and a goal percentage of 251.08 per cent.
They were one of five undefeated teams from the event, including Hinterland District Netball Association’s 15 Purple, who won 19 from 19 matches in the 15 Championship division continuing an unbeaten streak stretching back to last year’s Junior State Age.
The other undefeated teams were the Sunshine Coast Netball Association 15 White (15 Years Division 3), Southport Carrara Netball Association 16 White (16 Years Division 3) and Brisbane Netball Association 16.1 (16 Championship).
The Champion Association title went to Metropolitan Districts Netball Association, while Cornubia Park Netball Association were winners of the Performance Award.
All up this year’s Senior State Age featured 1535 games for a total of 30,700 minutes of netball.
The furthest any team travelled to be part of the event was Fiji’s Grasshoppers Netball Club with a 2800km trip to Brisbane’s western suburbs.
There was also plenty of nailbiting action on the sidelines with 77 drawn games, the top three teams in the 15 Years Division 4 ending on 25 points each while the fourth-placed team was just one point further back and the 16 Challenge top two being decided by a goal percentage difference of just 1.51 per cent.
Umpiring achievements were also a key part of the competition, with Maranoa’s Roree Winkel and Darling Downs’ Sally Charles both being awarded their National C Badge Accreditation during the event.
Several umpires were also recipients of Umpire Recognition Awards: Adriene Kannengiesser (Mackay), Alison Smith (Underwood Park), Ava Ward (Pine Rivers), Brooke Davis (Western Districts), Chelsea Hogan (Caboolture), Ella Rogers (Cairns), Jason Robertson (Downey Park), Josh Bragg (Townsville), Roree Winkel (Maranoa), Sally Bekker (Caloundra), Tahlia Barnes (QCNA) and Zoe Downes (Moranbah).
Players from both the Queensland Firebirds and Sunshine Coast Lightning Suncorp Super Netball clubs attended while activations from partners including University of Queensland, Nissan, Containers for Change, Suncorp, Valour, HART Sport and Mizuno kept the entertainment going between matches for players, friends and family.
Netball Queensland congratulates all participants, staff and volunteers for their efforts across the competition and thanks its partners and WDNA, celebrating their 50th anniversary, for making the event happen.