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Senior Futsal Competition

Andrew Willmott —

Futsal South trialled a new format for senior futsal in Term 3. Having previously played across both Terms 3 and 4, this year they condensed the season into Term 3 only. This had teams playing two games a night over a three-week season. With NCEA exams often limiting entries in this competition this was a good concept and well supported by Schools.

In such a short season, getting off to a winning start was important for teams. Suffering a loss in the first game of the night often impacting mentally on players and subsequent matches. Two teams managed to get those early wins and as it played out was critical to their successes. The OBHS Yellow team playing up in the top Division started positively (at the expense of the Blue team!) and were able to maintain their lead on competing teams. They were even able to lose their final game and still take out the league.

The other team was the World XI. Made up of international students they were a late entry into the competition. Playing out of the Fourth Division they were misplaced and easily won their Division. Under the lead of Lucas Cho and ably supported by Tomoki Nakazano and Taora Seki they had some big wins during the season.

In the other grades, OBHS White were very competitive but with a small squad and no specialist keeper they were unable to get over the line against many quality sides second division. The Black and Gold teams had some good battles but were too inconsistent and ended up mid-table in their division. The Pearcy twins, Matias Carvajal and Felix Brabant (Black team) and Nathan Hill, Connor Walsh and Dylan Fisher standing out. The Social team, playing in Division 4 improved throughout the season with Bruce Knox and Josh Lewis showing their goal scoring capabilities on the final night.