April Sports Round Up

Highlights include high participation, tournament team successes as well as outstanding Athletics results.

Volleyball, Futsal and Sailing teams competed in the secondary schools tournaments in March.

In Volleyball the Senior A Girls attended the Satellite Volleyball tournament in Christchurch. The girls placed 3rd in their pool and finished 8th overall. It was a fantastic development opportunity for the team and they all improved greatly over the three day tournament. Grace Jones was commended on her refereeing skills by the organisers of the competition.

Our Sailing team (featured elsewhere in Park Press) were very successful in the Sunburst Regatta. Anna Walrond and Miriam Barton won Best Girls Crew, Zoe Barton and Pepa Cloughley came third and James Hurley and Owen Bettis claimed a third in their division. We were second in School Overall results and second in the Teams Racing Cup where crew included Linus Molteno and Ben Kunath.

Our Futsal top boys team competed in their tournament in Wellington except many succumbed to the flu so they were disappointed with their results.

Our Athletics team results have been outstanding. 23 students competed in the Otago Secondary School Athletics Championships. 8 students qualified to attend the South Island Secondary School championships in Nelson at the end of March. Students had to be in the top 3 in Otago to qualify. Six students travelled to Nelson and again Nirvana Hepi-Breen was a standout winning all three of her throwing events, Hammer, Discus and Shotput. Zack Hibbert also performed magnificently, coming first in Hammer in South Islands. Viviane Dalphin ran very well to place 2nd in her 3000m and Nico Alvarez Rey-Virag placed 2nd in his 400m and 3rd in the 800m. This has been the most successful Athletics season in sometime. We are looking forward to attending the Nationals in December.

The Otago Softball Association recently held their Senior Awards Evening. Daniel Cowles was awarded the prestigious Otago U18 Sportsmanship award.

Our students have enjoyed the opportunity to play a variety of summer sports this term. As the season ends we have been preparing for the Winter sports Season. Our girls 1st XI football team has moved up to the 1st Division and look forward to the challenge. They will attend tournament in Winter tournament week in early September.

At an Otago Secondary Schools Sports Association Leadership workshop in March our Sports Head Prefects Annie Kennedy Atchison and Ziggi Kaitai Martin were invited to speak on our innovative lunchtime interhouse sports activities.

Victoria Fisk competed in the National Marching Champs in Christchurch in March. Her team came second in New Zealand in the U16 grade.

In the Challenge Wanaka Triathlon in March, Nico Alvarez, Liam Black and Eva Woodhouse placed 2nd in their team event.

Ella Molteno spent our summer in Europe with the sport’s best in Luge, training and racing in the Junior World Cup circuit. Ella was one of the youngest competitors at the junior world championships. She is now planning to attempt to qualify for the Youth Winter Olympics at the end of this year.

Finally in Laser Tag, Connor Hannagan qualified to represent New Zealand at the Australasian Laser Tag Champs in Australia in March.