S.C.O.P.A. wins Marist mix netball tournament

By Ulimasao Fata 14 February 2018, 12:00AM

A SCOPA team which competed as Azerbaijan is the winner for the Anchor Milk Marist Netball Tournament open mix grade.

They defeated China, 15-4, in the final of the competition held on Tuesday night at Gym 3 Tuanaimato.

The captain of Azerbaijan team, Leeroy Leone, was naturally elated.

He said this is the second time they have claimed the trophy and he was proud of his team. 

Having an international flavour was the theme of the tournament which was spearhead by the Samoa Institute of Sport (S.I.S) and the SCOPA Club chose the country Azerbaijan.

According to Phillippa Matatia the Director of S.I.S this year follows on last year’s competition with the same theme. 

“The Marist Sports week is to provide a platform for international teams to come over, last year was the first year of this competition,” she said.

“Given the short time frame that we had to be able to put the first tournament on, we decided to make a international theme, last year all the teams adopted a country and that theme has now flooded into influence this year. 

“Where we saw SCOPA a very strong netball club here in Samoa, they chose to go under team Azerbijan while the Marist and St Mary’s teams combined together combined together to form team China. We also had United Souls that enter under a team Antigua and Barbuda to make it more festive,” she said.

She said the open mix grade for them is to provide a more fun high quality format for our local based athletes to be able to participate in and what they are really happy about was the level of play for the under 17 as something that they intend to build leading onto the future.

“So in terms of yesterdays open mix grade we as organisers are really impressed with the fact that despite the delay and the changes for the final day cause we had to postpone due to cyclone Gita the teams still turned up,” she added.

The director of S.I.S also acknowledged the television station that came out and broadcasted the finals, she is certain that capturing the games is a really good avenue to highlight and showcase the sport which is Samoa’s leading sport for women in Samoa.

By Ulimasao Fata 14 February 2018, 12:00AM
Samoa Observer

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