Kukoma Diamonds maintained their unbeaten run in the Rainbow Paints Southern Region Netball League, when they came from behind to defeat rivals Tigresses 51-45 at Blantyre Youth Centre on Saturday.<\/p>\n
However, it was a match that exposed umpiring flaws in the league with Tigresses being the main victims as most decisions went against them.<\/p>\n
Diamonds were very physical especially in defence, while Tigresses shooter Sindie Simtowe-Msowoya was at her best in the first two quarters when her side led 15-12 and 24-23.<\/p>\n
Tigresses started with Simtowe-Msowoya and Ellen Chibokho in attack with Beatrice Mpinganjira playing at wing attack while Licy Akidu-Fiwa was deployed at \u00a0centre court.<\/p>\n
In defence, Tigresses had Cathy Yikwanga, Florence Chirwa-Chagonapanja and \u00a0Beauty Basiyawo.<\/p>\n
Diamonds featured Alinafe Kamwala and Sarudzai Gondwe upfront with Bridget Kumwenda- Chalera and Eneles Mdezo- Manda feeding the attackers.<\/p>\n
Multi-talented Sheila Dimba, seasoned Caroline Mtukule- Ngwira and Wezzie Mzemba- Msiska teamed up to form Diamonds\u2019 back three.<\/p>\n
Tigresses eventually gave up the lead midway through the first quarter after some fouls by Diamonds players went unpunished.<\/p>\n
The incident took away the will power in the Tigresses camp and allowed Diamonds to bounce back. The third quarter ended 36-32 in favour of Tigresses.<\/p>\n
Diamonds assistant Coach, Noel Mussa, said it was important to preserve their perfect record in the league.<\/p>\n
\u201cEven though we were trailing, we asked our players not to give up. We would like to defend the title,\u201d Mussa said.<\/p>\n
The win took his team\u2019s tally to 42 points at the summit of the log table.<\/p>\n
Tigresses Coach, Peace Chawinga-Kaluwa, refused to comment on officiation but praised her charges for an outstanding performance.<\/p>\n
\u201c I cannot talk about officiation; but my girls played well despite having some injuries which gave us some hiccups. I am proud of what I saw. We strategised and things worked according to plan.<\/p>\n
\u201cGoing forward, we will sit down and analyse what happened for us to lose. If there were any mistakes, we will rectify them. Otherwise the game was good,\u201d Chawinga-Kaluwa said.<\/p>\n
In other matches, Thunder Queens defeated Polytechnic 86-24 whereas Diamonds also humbled the university side 162-8.<\/p>\n
Tigresses beat Chilomoni 75-24 while Gerald Tasaukadala defeated Young Professionals 40-22. Thunder Queens were also 49-23 winners over Serenity Stars<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Kukoma Diamonds maintained their unbeaten run in the Rainbow Paints Southern Region Netball League, when they came from behind to defeat rivals Tigresses 51-45 at Blantyre Youth Centre on Saturday. However, it was a match that exposed umpiring flaws in the league with Tigresses being the main victims as most decisions went against them. Diamonds […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":57458,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-57457","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\/57457","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=57457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":57459,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/57457\/revisions\/57459"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/57458"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=57457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=57457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=57457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}