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| Sunday, 18 July 2004 |
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Record number of schools for Milo Netball Tourney by Leslie Fernando A record number of 623 teams from 302 schools including players from North and East Provinces - Trincomalee, Batticaloa, Vavuniya and Jaffna - will vie for championship honours at the 13th Sri Lanka Schools Milo Netball Tournament 2004 to be worked off during this weekend. Mrs. Rupa Amarasinghe, President, Sri Lanka Schools Netball Association commended Nestle Lanka Ltd, Milo for continuing the sponsorship for the development of netball in the country. Almost all the netballers who had represented the country had fared prominently in the Milo conducted netball tourneys in the past. Mrs. Amarasinghe also added that staging this type of tournaments enables the organisers to spot hidden talent from the rural areas - it is a promotion of netball in a big way. The schools netball chairperson said that the preliminary round matches will be played in 14 centres commencing this weekend - Ampara, Badulla, Anuradhapura, Kurunegala, Kandy, Matale, Nuwara-Eliya, Ratnapura, Kegalle, Gampaha, Batticaloa, Galle, Colombo, Kalutara and Homagama. The North, East preliminary round games will be played in Batticaloa. All matches upto the final round will be worked off only on Saturdays and Sundays upto October when the finals will be played at the Vincent Dias Stadium, Badulla during the second week in October. The tournament will be played in four age categories - under-12, under-14, under-16 and under-18 and the best player will be selected in each age group by a panel appointed by the Sri Lanka Schools Netball Association. Ms. Shiromi Kuruppu, Secretary Sri Lanka Schools Netball Association said that the association is planning to pick the best players from this tournament to be selected for the Austral-Asia netball championship to be held in Australia later this year. The outstanding players will be included into a pool and trained under experienced coaches from the Netball Federation of Sri Lanka. Last year, Maliyadeva Balika Vidyalaya became under-18 champions and also emerged under-14 champions. The under-12 title went to Kegalle BV and the under-16 title was won by Sirimavo Bandaranaike BV. Milo challenge trophies will be presented to the champions in all four age groups. Bandula Egodage, Sales Promotions and Sponsorship Manager of Nestle Lanka Ltd, confirmed that the establishment will take steps to continue to support promotion of netball in the future and also offer all possible assistance to the Sri Lanka Schools Netball Association. |
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