This year's summer shield sports exchange had students and staff coming out of their classes to watch RHS and Kaikorai Valley College as they went head-to-head in wide range of sports.

The two-day event began on Thursday 15 March when the Kaikorai student athletes arrived at Riccarton High School and were greeted by their billets and an opening ceremony. 

Shortly after their introduction, it was straight into competition.

On Thursday we saw the start of girls and boys tennis, volleyball and boys futsal. 

Both volleyball teams, boys futsal and boys tennis won their games. 

Unfortunately, the girls tennis team weren't able to defeat Kaikorai. At the end of the first day of competition, Riccarton had 20 points to Kaikorai's, five. 

The final event for Thursday was the Riccarton High School social. All the students from Kaikorai were invited to mingle among the Riccarton students at the Heroes and Villians themed social.

Friday 16 

As day two of competition commenced, Riccarton started out strong with a win in girls futsal, winning by a fair margin of 7-2 pushing Riccarton's lead in the points total to  25-5. 

Shortly after the futsal, both girls and boys athletics were in full swing. The girls athletic team were able to defeat Kaikorai's efforts and win with an end score of 33.5 to Kaikorai's 23.5. 

However, the boys athletic team were not able to keep up with their competitors, losing to a close score of 27-30. 

Then the mixed tennis games started to fire up and Riccarton won 4-0 a great performance from their tennis players. 

This was followed by the girls cricket. Kaikorai batted first and ended with a total of 40 runs with 8 dismissals after 20 overs. Riccarton came into bat and ended up winning the game by one run with a nail-biting 41 runs, 4 dismissals. Another two wins for Riccarton, but a retaliation by the visitors,  making the overall points score 35-10.

But by far the most entertaining and intense events to happen on the second day of competition hadn't even started yet, and that was the touch games. Especially the mixed touch game. 

Up first was the boys touch athletes from each school and they went head-to-head to see who would come out on top. 

At the start of the game, the teams were trading points one after the other but Riccarton managed to pull ahead and win convincingly 9 - 3. I was able to get a comment from Head of Sport, Jared Sherwin, who played in the game.

" There was a great game out here today, Riccarton came away with the win, 9-3. We played hard and all our practice leading up to this game helped us get the victory". 

Shortly after the boys touch the girl athletes were warmed up to go into battle. The girls touch game was a much closer game and lower scoring game compared to the boys. But that didn't stop the Riccarton girls and they emerged victorious, winning 2-1. 

A massive crowd had collected to watch the big game of the day - the mixed touch game, and the fans were not disappointed. The two teams were trading points from the start of the game until Kaikorai went up by one point. Tempers were flared and a Kaikorai player was sent off during a point. Riccarton took full advantage of this opportunity scoring minutes later and tying the score. 

Towards the end of the game, it was still tied 3-3 so it was down to sudden death, and the next point scored won. Kiakorai had the ball but made an unlucky mistake turning the ball over to Riccarton. Jaeden Hanks made a great run, passed the ball off to Luke Inward, and Riccarton scored and won the game.  

Riccarton touch players and fans flooded the field in celebration a truly great way to end the summer sport exchange.

So after winning all three touch games, the final score for the tournament was 55-10, and Riccarton reclaims the trophy for the third year in a row.