By Own Correspondent| ZDF Queens have maintained their five game unbeaten start to the Rainbow Netball League season with a comprehensive 45-38 win against arch rivals Manyame Falcon Queens.

On Saturday, the team hosted their fellow army counterparts in a rollercoaster of a match.

Falcon had a better start, scoring four goals before ZDF could convert their first goal.

However, Falcon needed everything to go right at Raylton Sports Club but they missed some golden opportunities to score and some midcourt blunders led them to a last quarter punishment by the home side.

ZDF’s Goal-Shooter Mercy Mukwadi’s last quarter sharp shooting exposed some lopsided match-ups.

ZDF coach Joel Sibanda was elated.

“The match was very tough. It was like a final game. The level of competition was just great.

“The tension was just high considering we are all from the same organisation. Even if you noticed we came here putting on the same uniform. We had to change.

“Another thing is we sometimes session together so we are a family but the job was to be done at the end of the day.

“From the word go until the final whistle it was a tight match.

“I give credit to my players, they never lost hope they did not give up. If they continue with that spirit we will go far,” Sibanda said.

Things didn’t go exactly to plan with the Falcon Queens scoring the first four goals but ZDF worked their way into the game.

ZDF are now standing on 10 points.

Sibanda went on to dedicate their victory to their star player Rejoice Dingizela, who tragically lost her son last week.

This was, however, one game which was always going to be difficult considering the circumstances.

But for ZDF Queens, it ended up feeling uplifting after they bravely fought to dismiss the Falcons much to the delight of their coach.

“We are dedicating this game to the late Romeo Junior Kapachika. As a family we were so saddened that one of our player lost her baby.

“Rejoice is one of the key player and we were worried if we were going to make it through this game.

“We tried to fight very hard to win so that we can have something to dedicate to him.”

The losing coach, Tapiwa Chirenda, who happened to be celebrating his birthday that same day was disappointed.

“I had wanted the win for my birthday but it was not to be.

“We started off well but eventually ZDF with their experience just capitalised on a few things whereas for us we are sort of rebuilding over again

“Today we started with three players who are not normally there in our starting line up for our past games, but we are happy that they were up to the task

“We led all the way to third quarter where we eventually succumbed due to a succession of bad decisions on court and such is a game, we win some and lose some.”-StateMedia