Football Crazy

On Friday 7th November the school football teams played in the Belfast regional competition at Queen‘s PEC. The Girls Model entered 4 teams who achieved the following results:

The Year 8 and 9 team won 3 and drew 1 of their group games. They drew 0-0 with Dunmurray, beat St Joseph‘s 2-0 with Courtney Hughes scoring both goals, and beat Lisnagarvey 2-0 and Hunterhouse 2-0 with captain Anthea Harbinson scoring all 4 of these goals. This was enough to see them win their group which qualified them for the semi-finals. Unfortunately they were defeated 1-0 by a strong Domican College team, although Courtney Hughes was unlucky to see her shot hit the post at the end of the match. However this is an excellent result for the team as this was their first experience of a competitive football tournament.

Two Year 10 and 11 teams were entered into the tournament. One team, captained by Amy Stewart, beat Our Lady of Mercy 1-0, drew 1-1 with Dundonald High, and lost 1-0 to Our Lady and St Patricks. Jemma McCormack and Jeanette Duff were the goalscorers in these matches.

The second team, captained by Annie Chapman won 2 matches against Strathern College (2-0) and Malone College (1-0) and drew 0-0 with Dominican College. This left them on equal points with the team from Dominican meaning a nerve-wracking penalty shootout was needed to decide who would go through to the semi-finals. Demi Harbinson and Rebecca Orr both bravely stepped up to take a penalty and both scored, so when Annie Chapman saved 2 of the Dominican penalties the Girls Model qualified for the semi-final. This saw them play the champions from last year Our Lady and St Patricks, and their experience unfortunately saw them defeat our girls 2-0.

The Senior team played 4 matches in their group winning 2 and drawing 2. This qualified them for the semi-finals which saw them play St Joseph‘s, and 2 goals from Hollie Johnston saw the Girls Model deservedly into the final. In the final they played Dominican College. Our girls played brilliantly and scored 2 excellent goals to win 2-0. This now qualifies them for the Northern Ireland finals in which they will play the winners from all the other group qualifying competitions. Top goalscorer was Katrina Montgomery who scored 6 goals in the 6 games, followed by Hollie Johnston who added another 3 of her own. Congratulations to the team of Heather Wilson, Sheena Mann, Jade Spence, Katrina Montgomery, Hollie Johnston, and Leah Fullerton who will now represent our school in the finals.

Congratulations to all 4 teams - it is an excellent result to have 3 out of 4 teams reaching the semi-finals and all 4 teams winning at least 1 match each. Any pupils who want to try out for the school team for the next tournament should come along to football practice in the top gym after school every Friday.