The cre­ation and ini­tial suc­cess of AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege Tu­na­puna net­ball pro­gramme, is a true tes­ta­ment to the pow­er of vi­sion, ded­i­ca­tion, and team­work. 

In a re­cent post on Face­book, the in­sti­tu­tion praised the young net­ballers, say­ing, “To­day was a ma­jor mile­stone for our school. For the first time in our 25-year his­to­ry, we had a school sports team tak­ing part in a na­tion­al school com­pe­ti­tion. We are de­light­ed to share some won­der­ful ‘net­ball news’ with you. Our AS­JA Girls’ Col­lege, Tu­na­puna teams rep­re­sent­ed our school bril­liant­ly and with great school pride.”

The post went on to praise Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion (PE) teacher, Re­anne Paiplal, for her “un­wa­ver­ing ded­i­ca­tion to our girls was in­stru­men­tal in this mile­stone”.

​The birth of net­ball at AS­JA Girls’

​Net­ball was in­tro­duced at AS­JA Girls’ Tu­na­puna as a re­quired part of the Phys­i­cal Ed­u­ca­tion cur­ricu­lum by the school’s first PE teacher.

Ac­cord­ing to Paipal, “What start­ed as a syl­labus re­quire­ment quick­ly trans­formed in­to a pas­sion for many stu­dents, who saw it as a way to build strength and em­brace a new sport.”

Paiplal is iden­ti­fied as the dri­ving force be­hind the team’s for­ma­tion and growth. She demon­strat­ed im­mense ded­i­ca­tion, of­ten train­ing the girls dur­ing va­ca­tion pe­ri­ods and mak­ing per­son­al sac­ri­fices to en­sure they were pre­pared and con­fi­dent. Her com­mit­ment laid the foun­da­tion for the team.

​Coach So­journ­er Hyles-Lewis was brought on to guide the team. Hyles-Lewis is a for­mer na­tion­al se­nior and ju­nior play­er. She coached the T&T ju­nior team to its first ti­tle in the Caribbean Net­ball As­so­ci­a­tion Jean Pierre Un­der-16 Cham­pi­onship, ear­li­er this year.

Paipal cit­ed that when the op­por­tu­ni­ty arose to train and form a team, the girls em­braced it whole­heart­ed­ly.

Fu­elled by vi­sion and hope, they be­gan search­ing for a coach who could guide them—and af­ter sev­er­al calls and much per­sis­tence, they found the per­fect match in Hyles-Lewis.

Paiplal had great things to say about the na­tion­al U-16 coach. “Her un­wa­ver­ing be­lief in the play­ers and her abil­i­ty to mo­ti­vate them to strive for ex­cel­lence be­came a cor­ner­stone of the team’s spir­it,” she said.

The launch of a com­pet­i­tive net­ball team is a his­toric mo­ment for the school, as it has nev­er en­tered the schools’ league in its 25 years of ex­is­tence.

​De­spite lim­it­ed re­sources and the ab­sence of a court, the team’s pas­sion was ev­i­dent. They trans­formed a mod­est space on cam­pus in­to a makeshift court to train, prov­ing that com­mit­ment can over­come cir­cum­stan­tial chal­lenges.

Ear­ly-sea­son per­for­mance

AS­JA Girls Tu­na­puna’s Un­der-15 team has had a suc­cess­ful start to the St George East Ed­u­ca­tion Dis­trict sea­son, and af­ter its open­ing two match­es sit on top of its group. In its first match ever, the U-15 unit de­liv­ered an out­stand­ing per­for­mance, se­cur­ing a de­ci­sive 25-0 win against St Joseph’s Con­vent, St Joseph.

“25 points for our 25 years! Their team­work, dis­ci­pline, and de­ter­mi­na­tion were tru­ly in­spir­ing,” added Paipal.

The oth­er win was against St Au­gus­tine Sec­ondary, 19-2. Mean­while, its U-20 unit start­ed the sea­son with a 45-4 loss to Tu­na­puna Sec­ondary School.

“Our U-20 team faced a strong op­po­nent in Tu­na­puna Sec­ondary and was de­feat­ed in a hard-fought match.

While the score­board didn’t re­flect a win, the girls demon­strat­ed courage, com­mit­ment, and heart through­out the game,” shared Paipal.

Hyles-Lewis likened the team’s jour­ney to “plant­i­ng a seed and wa­ter­ing, groom­ing and tak­ing care of it,” with the fo­cus firm­ly on the play­ers’ prepa­ra­tion and de­ter­mi­na­tion to play the game.

It tru­ly il­lus­trates what can be achieved when courage meets op­por­tu­ni­ty!