West Coast Fever have been embraced by the Kalgoorlie Boulder community this weekend during the team’s first pre-season matches in front of a WA crowd.
Fever brought elite netball to the region for the first time across a packed three days of activity with school visits, a community clinic and coach and umpire education sessions all featuring as part of the trip.
More than 2,000 Fever fans were engaged across the weekend, with the community showing their overwhelming support for their Fever team through sell-out attendances and a warm welcome at every turn.
Made possible thanks to the City of Kalgoorlie-Boulder, the State Government and Fever’s own Principal Partner the Gold Industry Group, the weekend culminated in two trial matches against Giants Netball at the Goldfields Oasis Recreation Centre.
The first match on Saturday featured a dominant performance from Fever, coming out on top 74-58.
Jhaniele Fowler was a standout, finishing the game at 100% shooting 60 from 60 whilst Alice Teague Neeld was also strong shooting an impressive 90%.
The mid-court combinations of Verity Charles, Jess Anstiss and Ingrid Colyer were dominant throughout the match with the second quarter setting up the win after claiming the quarter by 13 goals.
The second match on Sunday morning saw another Fever win, with a huge 20-goal margin and a final score of 70-50.
It was the defensive line up of Stacey Francis, Shannon Eagland and Courtney Bruce that was the standout, generating 40 gains across the match.
Throughout a mixture of combinations, the standard remained high across the second match with Fever winning every quarter.
Whilst the score lines were what got the crowds excited, Head Coach Stacey Marinkovich was more pleased by the culmination of pre-season training coming together under the pressure of a full SSN match.
“Pre-season matches obviously mean a lot more than just a win or loss; we want to test our combinations and the areas we’ve been focusing on during the offseason,” Marinkovich said.
“Across both games, I was really happy with how the team has built on what we delivered on the Sunshine Coast, and transfer what we’ve been doing at training onto the court,”
“It’s always great to get a win, but to see the things we’ve been working on at training and the consistency of what we are building across four quarters is what we’re looking for, and I saw a lot of that this weekend.”
The trip to the Eastern Goldfields region coincided with International Women’s Day, with Courtney Bruce acknowledging the significance of being able to celebrate the day with the Kalgoorlie Boulder community.
“International Women’s Day for myself and the Club is really about inspiring the next generation; we want to see strong independent women coming through our pathway in netball, but also outside the sport,”
“To be able to celebrate our role in that journey in a community with such a rich netball history has been a real privilege,”
“Being able to engage with the local schools and to see how excited the kids are to see us, as well as being able to share a little bit of knowledge about the game, has been an opportunity that the whole team has embraced.”
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