Netball: Junior Nationals second round on Sunday

The District Associations of Kandy, Badulla, Sri Lanka Schools, Polonnaruwa, Galle, Colombo, Matara and Matale qualified for the quarter-final round of Junior Nationals Netball Championship, which is currently in progress at the International Cricket Stadium in Galle. 

The quarter-final round will kick off from 8.30am on Sunday (5) with matches slotted to be played between Kandy and Badulla, Sri Lanka Schools and Polonnaruwa, Galle and Colombo and Matara and Matale. 

At the first round of the league tournament, played on Saturday (4) Kandy beat Colombo 23-10 from Group 'A', Sri Lanka Schools beat Matale comprehensively 34-12 from Group 'B', Galle A beat Badulla 28-7 from Group 'C' and Matara beat Polonnaruwa 15-14 in a cliffhanger from Group 'D' to become group champions respectively. 

The semi-final round will start from at 11.00am while the final is scheduled to be worked off at 3.00pm. 

This contest is a talent search to select a pool for the 2017 World Youth Championships in Bosnia. 

This motive proved to add terrific tussle for the championship title. Eighteen teams, representing 14 affiliations, are taking part in the event. 

Earlier two teams from each association were scheduled to enter the competition but six teams pulled out from the final fray. Mercantile, State Services, Army, Navy, Air Force and Police are not taking part in the competition as they have no Under-19 players. 

The draw for the contest took place in the morning yesterday the reason being that several teams arrived late for the competition. 

The first round of the tournament was held under four groups. 

The first round will be conducted on a league basis and the group champions and runners-up in each group will qualify for the quarters. 

This championship is conducted by Sri Lanka Netball Federation. The chief guest for the event will be Kalum Seneviratne, Mayor of Galle.