Surrey Storm have been crowned 2024 School Games National Finals after a closely-fought 19-23 victory over Manchester Thunder in the final.
The win rounded off an unbeaten weekend at Loughborough University for the side in duck egg blue who started their campaign by making it five from five in the group stage.
They started strongly on Friday 30 August with a 28-16 victory over London Pulse before laying down a real marker of intent with back-to-back dominant displays against Central Warriors (27-12) and Severn Stars (40-16).
Storm continued their fine form into day two of the competition on Saturday 31 August, running out 13-34 winners against Wales and then narrowly overcoming Loughborough Lightning (22-25).
This set up a meeting with Group A runners-up Mavericks who had lost just once, against Group A winners Manchester Thunder (25-17), on their way to the semi-finals.
Aside from the battle against Mavericks and a 23-29 victory over Leeds Rhinos, Thunder charged to wins by over 10 goals against Team Bath (14-39), Scotland (10-54) and North East Phoenix (34-21).
After topping Group A, they faced Group B runners-up London Pulse in the semi-finals and overcame their opponents 34-18.
A 32-12 victory for Storm against Mavericks meant the stage was set for a repeat of the 2021 final.
After beating Surrey Storm in that 2021 final, Manchester Thunder successfully defended their crown in 2022 with victory over London Pulse.
But in 2024, it was Storm who came out on top after a fantastic 19-23 final.
The full final standings were:
- Surrey Storm
- Manchester Thunder
- Mavericks
- London Pulse
- Loughborough Lightning
- North East Phoenix
- Leeds Rhinos
- Severn Stars
- Team Bath
- Central Warriors
- Wales
- Scotland
Re-watch all the action from the competition on the Youth Sport Trust YouTube channel and catch up on all the results here.
Congratulations to all the teams involved on a brilliant three days at the UK’s biggest multi-sport event for young athletes and thank you to all the event organisers, volunteers, coaches, officials, support staff and spectators for making it all possible.
