one thing to kkep in mind if you full zoom... you´ll get noise in your pics... the meter that shows how much you´ve zoomed either12x 15x or full 48x will change color in the bar part once it´s past the blue part and turns yellow then the noise will became greater.......

if you use the sports settign on the camera... you´ll also get noise becuase the ISO set for that is too high...also the flash doesn´t goes off in sports mode you may wanna try the M mode and set the shutter speed over the 250 mark but a 1000 would be even better for rapid sports (or whatever you see works for you)... panning is also a good idea and works wonders as the background gets blurry and the subjets is in focus thus a neat outcome...

the aperture should be a small number to allow more light in (this also use what works for you best due to the day conditions)...

just play around a lil and see which one comes better and shoot with it..