THE Bathurst Public School netball team has etched its name into the school’s history books by taking out the Western Region PSSA Championship last week.

The only team from the school that had previously taken out a Western Region title was the boy’s cricket side, but the girls have now joined them after a comfortable win over Orange Heights on Thursday.

The Dubbo side struggled to keep pace with Bathurst, who eventually took the win 22-4. They dominated from the outset.

It completed a brilliant performance across the entire tournament, though they almost met their match in the semi-finals.

“The format meant that we won the eastern division of the tournament and Orana Heights won the western half and the two played off,” Bathurst Public principal Kate White said.

“We won through the Bathurst leg and then played Lithgow Zig Zag in round two, and Blayney in round three. 

“They were last year’s Western Region winners, so we were expecting that to be a tough game and it was.

“We defeated Bletchington from Orange in round four which set us up for a semi against Orange Public and that game was very close from start to finish.

“There was only a couple of goals in it, but the good thing was that after such a tough game, it got the girls ready for the final and tuned them up nicely.”

White said that the side’s aspirations were sparked mostly by the win over Blayney.

“To begin with we weren’t sure how the girls would go, though with a lot of girls from our team also in the Bathurst district team, we were hopeful,” she explained.

“When we defeated Blayney, given how strong they were last year, we started to think that we had a bit of a shot at it though again, Orange are such a strong netball town that we weren’t as confident when we met them in the semi-final.

“Now that we’ve come this far, we’ve qualified for the quarter-finals of the NSW Championships which will be played in September. It is good that the players have a bit of a break because they have a lot of club and district commitments between now and then.”

The team success wasn’t the end of the story either, with four players named in the Western representative side after the tournament’s conclusion.

Tianna Copeland, Tegan Bush, Sophie Hillsdon and Zara Sheader were all selected in a squad dominated by the eastern pool of the region.