The Cougars were beaten 44-17 in their first game of the season at Surrey Sports park on October 10 .
Surrey put in a dominant performance, scoring goal after goal despite Kingston’s best efforts to maintain possession and work the ball in centre court.
“Everyone played amazingly against a tough Surrey opposition,” team captain and shooter Emily Merritt said.
“Hats off especially to the defensive team who worked tirelessly to turnover the ball.”
The girls looked like they were going to shorten the lead in the second quarter after falling behind but Surrey’s attacking players were just too strong.
Olivia Smith, who joined the firsts just over a week ago, put great pressure on Surrey’s shooters.
Smith worked in unison with Broynwn Moulder, in defense, enabling Kingston to momentarily regain possession of the ball.
“Today was a really good team effort and although we lost I felt like the different units of the team started to work really well together,” said Moulder, who has played netball for 9 years and previously played at regional level.
Moulder and fellow defensive player Catherine Thorpe continually supported the attackers from the centre third, especially in the second half of the game.
This meant that Merritt and Rebekah Knight could re-calculate an attacking strategy and catch up to Surrey’s 20 point lead going into the second half.
With four new additions to the team this year, the team showed a real potential to climb up in the league table this season.
Merritt added: “For future matches we need to improve our communication and driving towards the ball in order to get it down the court more effectively.”
Kingston beat Surrey 40-29 last season at home and will play them again at Tolworth Sports ground on December 5, 2018.
Konstantinos Patas
Josh Smith
Caitlin Hamill