The Malawi Queens Thursday produced a dominant performance to thrash Zambia 60- 34 at the Ugu Sports Centre in Margate, South Africa and to set up a captivating final of the Diamond Netball Challenge against continental rivals South Africa Friday evening.<\/p>\n
The Queens trounced Zambia in every aspect of the match as they had 88 percent shooting accuracy compared to Zambia\u2019s 72.<\/p>\n
The Queens also made 13 interceptions while Zambia only made eight.<\/p>\n
Malawi had 40 turnovers while Zambia had 26.<\/p>\n
Smarting from a confidence-draining 33-43 defeat against South Africa in the group stages on Wednesday, the Queens knew they had to beat their neighbours to book a place in the final since Malawi had an inferior goal difference against closest challengers Uganda.<\/p>\n
The Queens started on top, playing their trademark quick passing game and went 4-1 up early on.<\/p>\n
The two sides showed similarities in terms of tactical approach and they were both quick on the attacks with swift, short passes.<\/p>\n
However, the Malawi Queens had the upper hand, and with Sindie Simtowe recapturing her top form at a critical period, the Queens won the first quarter 15-8.<\/p>\n
She deservedly won the player-of-the-match accolade.<\/p>\n
Zambia came stronger in the second half with goal shooter Lucy Jere proving a menace to the Malawi defence led by captain Caroline Mtukule-Ngwira and Towera Vinkhumbo.<\/p>\n
Zambia cut down Malawi\u2019s lead to five baskets but the Malawi Queens restored control of the match with Takondwa Lwazi and Thandi Galeta helping the side weather the storm.<\/p>\n
The Queens led 27-18 at halftime.<\/p>\n
Queens\u2019 coach, Peace Chawinga- Kalua introduced Grace Mwafulirwa for Joanna Kachilika in defence at the start of the third quarter and it was no longer a contest as the Queens\u2019 soared to a 46-24 lead at the end of the quarter.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Malawi Queens Thursday produced a dominant performance to thrash Zambia 60- 34 at the Ugu Sports Centre in Margate, South Africa and to set up a captivating final of the Diamond Netball Challenge against continental rivals South Africa Friday evening. The Queens trounced Zambia in every aspect of the match as they had 88 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":4497,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4498,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4490\/revisions\/4498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}