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SA ladies water polo squad named

Cape Town - With the club water polo summer league coming to an end, the water polo national team selectors held a training camp in Cape Town open to all SA ladies from March 20-24.

The camp consisted of time trials, three hour training sessions twice a day, as well as trial matches to showcase the ladies’ skills. There were over 30 women from six different provinces at the camp.

Ryan Weideman, one of the coaches involved in the SA water polo programme shared, "the training camp in Cape Town was a start of good things to come, where players and coaches looked to implement a new programme, designed to get SA water polo to a more competitive level internationally."

The ladies also played an exhibition match during the National Masters Tournament, which was held in a quarry. The USA men's team played a match against the South African men’s team, this was an exciting match filled with phenomenal water polo.

The national water polo tournament, Currie Cup, took place in Port Elizabeth from April 10-13. In the women's section of the tournament, six senior sides and four Under-20 sides competed.

After the varied results of the pool matches, Central Gauteng, Northern Gauteng, Western Province and KwaZulu-Natal advanced to the semi-finals. Central Gauteng and KZN played a heated final, with Central Gauteng finally winning 4-3.

Kelsey White, hole-marker for Central Gauteng, had this to say about their victory: "After some bad losses, we gathered ourselves, and stuck to Coach Sammy's (Gareth Samuels) game plan, and took each chukka as it came. We were so happy, as Central Gauteng have not won gold for the last six years."

Following the tournament, the Senior and Under-20 ladies Springbok squads were announced, with the following ladies being selected:

Senior Ladies team

Border
Caroline Booth, Marcelle Keet, Lindsey Kileen

Central Gauteng
Kieren Paley, Kelsey White, Leigh Maarschalk, Clair Gorrie

Northern Gauteng
Amy Knight, Anke Jacobs, Kaylin Shortt

Western Province
Kimberly Kemp, Tarryn Schooling, Megan Schooling, Mymoena Gamiet, Amica Hallendorff, Amy Keevy, Shelly Faulman

KwaZulu-Natal
Lee-Ann Keet, Pippa Beaumont, Samantha Keet

Eastern Province
Delaine Christian, Christy Rawstron

Under20 Ladies team

Border
Lindsey Killeen, Nina Cressey, Babalwa Mabena, Carly Wessels, Tayla Louw

Central Gauteng
Savanah Roy, Alex Gascoigne, Robyn Paley, Megan Harper

Northern Gauteng
Kim Rosslee, Robyn Macleod, Kelly Kirsten, Tayla Webb

Western Province
Jamie Day, Nicole Haird, Emma Loubser, Mymoennah Gamiet, Shelley Oosthuizen, Sarah Bentham

KwaZulu-Natal
Bianca Ellewe, Thembi Mikhize, Megan Parkes, Nicole Mackenzie

Eastern Province

Delaine Christian, Christy Rawstron

The next step is a training camp for all selected squad members in Durban from May 24-26. At this training camp the traveling team of 13 players will be selected.

This team will then travel to the FINA World Championships to be held in Barcelona from July 21 to August 2 where 16 national water polo ladies teams will be competing with South Africa the only African nation. South Africa’s pool includes China, New Zealand and Australia.

The last World Championship (in China in 2011) was dominated by Greece, China and Russia.

This year there are several other strong teams, such as the Americans, the Dutch and the Australians to be reckoned with.

The Australians now have one of South Africa’s strongest players, Sarah Harris, who has received citizenship after moving to Australia to play water polo competitively.


Water polo ladies at the training camp in Cape Town (www.oakpics.com)
 
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