Columba College Impresses at the Otago Netball Champs

Mrs G Beardmore — June 13th, 2023

The Otago Secondary Schools Netball Champs were held at the Edgar Centre over Sunday 11th and Monday 12th June 2023, and four Columba College teams participated in the tournament achieving some fantastic results.

Congratulations to all four representative Columba College Netball Teams who participated in the Otago Secondary Schools Netball Tournament across Sunday and Monday this week, a fabulous event with many school teams in attendance from across the Otago region, the two days of competition always delivers on excitement and energy. This year saw competitive matches across all grades, impressive skills on display, and positive team camaraderie across all courts.

The Columba College Senior A showed their class, winning all their pool games comfortably and progressing through to the semi-finals where they had a strong win over Otago Girls High School Senior A 43-18. This set up an exciting final match against St. Hilda's Collegiate School. After a closely contested first quarter, Columba slowly and surely crept ahead and improved as the game went on, securing a well deserved and impressive 28-18 win to take out the title of Senior A Champions! Well done Columba Senior A!

The Senior B team had an equally impressive tournament and comfortably won all three of their pool play games, 47-11, 38-18, and 40-6 over OGHS Senior B, Wakatipu HS, and Cromwell Senior B respectively. This put them straight through to a final match up against the St. Hilda's Senior B, where Columba narrowly went down 24-28. The players and coaching team should be extremely proud of these results. Well done Columba!

The group of talented players part of this year's Columba 10A team were strong again this year, and won all three pool play games leading into a semi-final match up against Taieri College 10A on Monday. A hard-fought contest resulted in a 28-23 win to Columba, and progressed the team into the final against MAC College. Well done Columba 10A for winning the title match 43-13, and being crowned champions of the 2023 Year 10 Grade!

A special mention this year goes to the Columba 9A team who represented the school with pride and passion. After a tough start to the regular Saturday netball competition, the progress, skill development, team work and commitment by this group of young players is heartening to see. A great tournament to help prepare for the upcoming SISS Champs in Christchurch, an impressive win over St. Kevin's on day one put the team through to a finals match up against Queens High School 9A, where Columba played extremely well but eventually lost 26-19. A fantastic win over Taieri College on Monday (26-20), propelled Columba into a playoff for 5th/6th. A tough South Otago High School won this match 20-15, resulting in Columba 9A placing 6th overall in the tournament. Well done 9A. You should all feel immensely proud of your progress!

Overall results listed below. Congratulations to the following teams;

Senior A

1st - Columba College

2nd - St Hilda’s Collegiate

3rd - Otago Girls High School

Senior B

1st - St Hilda’s Collegiate

2nd - Columba College

3rd - Mt Aspiring College

Year 10

1st - Columba College

2nd - Mt Aspiring College