13 Sep 2022

Botswana Netball Association’s (BONA) Top 8 tournament and national finals are scheduled for October and November respectively.

The Top 8 would be held from October 29 to 30 and the nationals from November 12 to 13.

Venues for the two competitions will be announced soon.

In an interview, the association’s spokesperson, Mokeresete Mokeresete said they were happy that preparations for the two competitions had begun in earnest.

Mokeresete said he was also happy that the Lucara Netball League was running smoothly and highly competitive.

As a result, they were expecting a stiff competition both at the Top 8 and national finals.

Teams that would make it to the Top 8, he said, would be selected from a pool of 12, out of which seven would be from the south and five from the north under the women’s category.

“In that regard, we will be using a 5:3 ratio, meaning we will have five teams that will make it to the Top 8 from the seven teams from the south zone and three teams from the north zone,” he explained.

For the national finals, he said only the top four ranked teams from the Top 8 would make a cut.

On the men’s side, he said they had seven teams in total, out of which five were from the south zone and two from the north zone.

He added that a 3:1 ratio would be used.

“Mind you, we are not going to have Top 8 in the men’s side because we only have seven teams,” he said.

Top 8 prizes: P10 000 for winners while those in position two would be awarded P7 500.

Teams in third position would win P6 000 while position four would get P5 500, P3 500 for position six and P3 000 and P2 500 for positions seven and eight respectively.

Mokeresete added that the teams that failed to qualify for the Top 8 from number nine to number 12, would each get P2 000.

He further said the Top 8 would be categorised in Pools A and B and the team that would be in positions one and two from both the pools would therefore qualify for the national finals.

“At the national finals, we will start in the semi-finals where number one in Pool A will face number two in Pool B, and number one in Pool B would play against number two in Pool A,” he said.

Mokeresete said winners from both pools would play in the finals while the losers would play in the losers’ finals. ENDS