On Sunday the 21st of March about eight teams were at the gold coast indoor sports centre at Ashmore, raising money for people with Down Syndrome.
One of these teams were the Queensland Gems, the state netball team for women with intellectual disability, also with a man in the team, which is me, Jack Matthews, as the development coach/player.
During the competition, the Gems won two games and loss two, and then won the Grand Final against the Pink Panthers.
For me, as a player myself the best two games yesterday were the Grand Final and our third pool match, in which I was the attacker and defence for these two games.
The Grand Final between the Gems and Pink Panthers finished with the final score 12 to 8. The team went awesome from the goal circle in shooting to the defence, with our intercepts and getting rebounds.
During the Grand Final we worked so hard. The Pink Panthers and the Gems were neck to neck in the first couple of minutes, then the Gems were on top against the Pink Panthers. Our stand out players were Gem’s goal shooter Lisa who shot goals from everywhere in the circle and we worked well as a team.
By halftime, the Gems were 9 and the Pink Panthers were 5, then by the second half the Gems pulled out to a healthy lead, with the Gems’ two defenders Zoe and Jack who come up with few intercepts and rebounds between us, and in the drying seconds the Gems know that the Gems are going to win the Grand Final.
We played well as a team and I was able to come up with a couple of intercepts and some rebounds because of my height. The Pink Panthers have some tall players, but we found out a way to score. We are looking forward to our next competition of the Tri21 Series in years to come and hopefully seeing everyone back at Nissan Arena for training for the Marie Little Shield soon.
