Focus on netball pays off for Georgie Edgecombe

Georgie playing for her St Peter's School Senior A side.

​Georgie Edgecombe has won two national sporting titles for her school and representative sides in basketball and touch and has played alongside some of the country’s top up and coming female players in both those sports.

But putting her sole focus into netball has paid dividends for Georgie with her recent selection in the 14-strong New Zealand Secondary Schools team.

Georgie, a goal defender or goal keeper and occasional wing defender, joins the NZSS team at the end of September before travelling to Canberra from 1-5 October to play the Australian U17 squad and an England U17 side.

The St Peter’s School, Cambridge player been selected as one of two netballers from Waikato Bay of Plenty in the NZSS team, alongside Khiarna Williams who goes to Trident High School and played in the region’s Beko side this season.

Georgie is back playing after recently being sidelined by a short, sharp injury.

“I played for Hamilton City at the National U17 tournament in the school holidays - but I got injured in the first game,” she says. “I dislocated my patella in the last 30 seconds of the opening game.”

Her team won that match over Hawke’s Bay Black 32-22. They went on to finish 10th of 42 teams without Georgie on the court, although she was able to contribute in other ways. “I was a bit of a defence coach for the rest of the week!”

The New Zealand team was named after the U17 tournament had concluded and the good news is that Georgie was back playing last week. “I am on the recovery now and it is nearly all better and I had my first three quarters back on court last Thursday.”

St Peter’s School Head Girl Georgie is also the leader of her school Senior A netball team. “I have been in the team for three years and I have been the captain for those three years as well.” This year she is captaining a young side. “Our team is made up of mostly year 10s, but they have lots of potential.”

St Peter’s play in two competitions. On Monday nights they play in the Waikato and Bay of Plenty school competiton and on Thursday nights they play Waikato club netball in the Premier grade.  “This is against players such as Laura Langman and WBOP Beko and Magic players, so it is a good learning opportunity for us and our young players are gaining plenty of experience.”

The big tournament coming up is the Upper North Island Secondary Schools (UNISS) tournament in Mt Maunganui this time next month in Winter Tournament Week.

St Peter’s heads into this year’s UNISS seeded 19th and needs to finish inside the top six to earn a spot at the coveted NZSS tournament later in October.
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Georgie started playing netball when she was about eight or nine. “I started in primary school with my friends and had a lot of fun. I realised once I got into intermediate and into secondary school I really enjoyed it and grew passionate about it and wanted to take it further.” 

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Georgie is busy juggling her role as St Peter's School Head Girl and newly selected NZSS netballer.

Her upcoming trip with the New Zealand Secondary Schools team will be her third netball tour of Australia. “I have been on two school netball tours there before. Last year we went to Sydney and we spent about four days playing school, club and rep teams, and in 2015 we did the same.”

With a background in other sports, netball is Georgie’s sole focus now.

“I have played basketball for St Peter’s. I am not this season, but I did in 2015 and 2016.” St Peter’s were national NZSS champions both those years. Teammates Charlisse Ledger-Walker and Ella Bradley are current NZ U17 basketballers.

“My other main sport has been touch in the summer. I played in the 2017 U18 Waikato team.” This team were national champions and members of that side are in the NZ U18 side for the Youth World Cup and others are in the NZ U18 girls sevens rugby side going to the Youth Olympics in October.

Being Head Girl of St Peter’s and a newly minted NZSS netballer means there isn’t a lot of downtime for Georgie. “I have got a pretty full schedule.”  Academically, she is doing five NCEA level 3 subjects, geography, economics, maths and English.
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She was asked to trial for the WBOP netball team at the start of this year but she decided not to given her already packed schedule. For now she is just concentrating on an exciting few months coming up with school and representative netball and finishing her time at St Peter’s on a high.

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