A SUNRAYSIA Football Netball League 15 & Under representative team returned from Bendigo with championship silverware after winning the 2025 Central Victorian Netball Association tournament.
Squad member Isla French was forced to retire from the competition early due to injury, but that didn’t stop her side delivering a dominant last performance to seal a 17 to 9 grand final triumph over Golden Rivers Football Netball League.
“The girls turned up ready to go after being mostly the state titles team,” said coach Lisa Mangan.
“They brought the same attitude with them, and we went out and hit the court hard.”
Despite losing a player, the group steadied and produced a composed showing to take home the crown and win their closing game by eight goals.
“They had the jitters for a few matches, but they came back and won quite easily in the final, which was nice, very one sided,” said Mangan.
The SFNL players finished the event with a record of seven victories, one draw and one loss.
Opposition quality was considerable throughout the day, with the girls pushed in several group matches.
“The levels of opposition was quite good, Central Murray are strong, we drew with them,” said Mangan.
“Wimmera as well and CVNA who we lost to by one point they’re quite strong too, and of course, Golden Rivers.”
The formidable squad featured high quality teenage players from across the SFNL regional sides who are sure to have promising futures within the sport.
“We’ve got them from everywhere, a couple of Wentworth, we’ve got four from South Mildura, one in Mildura and two from Irymple,” said Mangan.
“There was quite a few people watching, which is good but next week we’ll find out whether they get talent ID’D at the Zone in two weeks when we go to that.”
This Sunraysia 15 & Under outfit will be tested again at the Northern Zone Championships which is the next step in the Netball Victoria talent academy pathway.
“A lot of them are bottom age, so hopefully we can get three years of these girls playing together,” said Mangan.
“The Northern Zone Championship is everyone from our zone, so if they win that they can move on to Melbourne to play against all the other zone winners and they get talent scouted by Netball Victoria for the talent academy.”
