Amanzimtoti teacher selected for KZN women’s netball team
I look forward to being in their team rather than playing against them.
A Kingsway High School teacher has been selected for the KZN senior women’s netball team. Alicia Puren will get the chance to see some inter-provincial action when the Telkom Netball League, usually contested from April to July, gets condensed into two weeks of non-stop action from 9 to 27 October in Bloemfontein.
KZN finished top of the B division league last season, so won the right to promotion to the A league. As an Amanzimtoti High School pupil she made the KZN cut every year as a teen, but then attended the University of the Free State (UFS), so this is her first time plying her trade for the senior team.
“As a member of the Free State Crinums, we often played against KZN’s Kingdom Stars, so I look forward to being in their team rather than playing against them. I think we stand a good chance of doing well at the tournament. KZN has a habit of pulling a trick out of the hat. They are also very physical and we have a number of players who have come from other provinces. I’m really excited to be a part and an asset to the KZN team.”
Alicia was a member of the SA Spar Smilies team last year and part of the SA U21 training squad in 2016. She is currently in the SA squad and hopes to be included in the starting line-up when the SA team is announced after the tournament. “Our first non-contact training session took place on Saturday (29 August). Then on 29 September we go into a bubble, where we get tested first and then train and live together as a team until we leave for Bloemfontein. I have played under our assistant coach, but not the coach.”
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She is a Grade 8 and 9 maths teacher who also coaches the U14 girls netball team. “We have quite a strong squad this year that won bronze in the indoor league.” She joined Kingsway last year after completing a year of BSC and three years of teaching at UFS. “I’m enjoying being a teacher and I think I made the right choice.”
As captain of the UFS team, they won the Varsity Cup in 2018. “That was one of my highlights, beating Tuks in the final.” Her team won the Brutal Fruit Cup, which is now known as the Telkom league, in 2014, 2015 and 2016. They also won the Varsity Netball Cup in 2014 and 2016, and lost in the final in 2015.
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