Zanaiya Bergen Honored by Teammates and Clubs After Her Death at 23

 The Navarre Football Netball Club and the wider Wimmera sporting community are mourning Zanaiya Bergen, 23, whose death has left teammates, friends, opponents and clubs across regional Victoria grieving. Her passing has been felt particularly strongly in a sporting network where relationships often extend beyond individual matches and seasons. For many who knew her, Zanaiya was not simply a player on a team sheet, but a valued part of the communities she represented and a young woman whose presence mattered to those around her. The sorrow surrounding her death is being shared across clubrooms, fields and courts as people remember the friendships and experiences that shaped her life.

Zanaiya competed across several football and netball competitions, including the Wimmera Football Netball League, Horsham & District Football Netball League, and Mininera & District Football Netball League. Her involvement across these leagues connected her with teammates, coaches, opponents and supporters throughout the region. That broad sporting circle has now become part of the collective mourning, with people from different clubs sharing in the loss of someone who contributed to regional sport at a young age.

The Navarre Football Netball Club has been among those remembering Zanaiya, whose passion for competition and commitment to her teams made a lasting impression. In community sport, athletes often build friendships and connections that continue beyond the field or court, creating a sense of belonging that can become an important part of everyday life. Zanaiya’s involvement in multiple leagues meant her sporting journey reached a wide group of people across Wimmera communities.

A particularly poignant tribute came from the Wimmera Football Netball League A and B Grade teams, which observed a minute’s silence in Zanaiya’s memory. The gesture offered players and sporting communities an opportunity to pause together and acknowledge the loss. Such a moment also reflected how deeply a young athlete’s death can affect an interconnected sporting region, where clubs may compete against one another while still sharing friendships, traditions and respect.

Beyond statistics, results or individual competitions, Zanaiya is being remembered for the personal qualities she brought to sport and community life. Tributes describe her as much loved and respected, with teammates and others recalling the energy, dedication and connection she brought to the clubs she represented. Those memories now carry particular weight for people facing the absence of a friend and teammate whose life ended at just 23.

For Zanaiya’s family and close friends, the grief is personal, while for the broader football and netball community, her passing has created a shared sense of sorrow. The clubs and leagues connected to her career have provided a network through which memories can be honored and support can be offered. In times of loss, those connections can give people space to remember a person as they were: active, committed, social and deeply connected to others through a sport they loved.

As Navarre and the Wimmera football and netball community continue to mourn, Zanaiya Bergen’s memory will remain connected to the teams she represented and the people she met along the way. Her death is a painful loss to her family, friends, teammates, coaches and opponents, as well as to the sporting communities that knew her. The minute’s silence and shared tributes provide a lasting expression of respect for a player whose life touched many through regional sport.