Three young Shetland netballers make 12-strong Scotland squad

Three young Shetland netballers have started the new year with a bang with the exciting news that they have been selected for the under-17 Scottish netball squad.

Inga Woods, Emma Leask and Sophie May Leyland, who are all 16, received an email earlier this week from Netball Scotland to congratulate them on making the final 12.

They will form a quarter of the squad that will compete at the Netball Europe Under-17 Championships in Northern Ireland from the 12th-14th March 2010.

The three athletes took part in a tournament at the start of December in Newcastle as part of the under-17 Scottish “long” squad made up of 18 players. They played a number of games against junior teams from England with the players being tried out in a number of different combinations on court as the coaches made the difficult decisions in cutting the squad down to 12 players.

As their last training session of 2009 on 19th December was cancelled due to adverse weather conditions the girls had the nail biting wait over the festive season before they heard if they had been successful in making the squad.

The Shetland Junior Netball development group would like to congratulate the lasses on making the Scottish squad and wish them all the luck for the European Championships in March.

A spokeswoman for the group said: “This is the furthest any Shetland netball players have progressed at this elite level. Having one player chosen at this level is a great achievement so having three young talented netball players from Shetland represent their country is a huge success for both the players and Shetland Netball.”