Cricket, Volleyball, Tennis

Cricket

This year Shirley Boys' High School hosted Kings High School in their annual exchange, with the 1st XI game being played at school, and the Junior Game at Burwood Park. The weather turned it on, with two fine days. Unfortunately despite their competitiveness, Shirley Boys lost both games.

1st XI Game

Shirley Boys won the toss and chose to bat on a good batting wicket. A good all round batting performance saw the team compile an impressive 220 all out. The highlight of the innings was a seventh wicket partnership of 80 runs between Ryan McLean (54) and Noah Westwood (39). Kings replied with 227/6 declared. Then an ill-disciplined, second innings batting effort saw Shirley bowled out for 91. Kings easily knocked the runs off losing only 2 wickets.

Shirley BHS 220/10 [Ryan McLean 54, Noah Westwood 39, Cameron Clement 37, Mitchell Barry 37] and 91/10 [Brad Entwistle 35] lost to Kings HS 227/6 [Marek Bungard 3-61, Matt Kendall 2-39] and 88/2 by 8 wickets.

Junior Game

Shirley Boys won the toss and chose to bowl. Kings compiled a useful 173 with Jaeden Hooper being the best of the Shirley bowlers taking four wickets. In reply Shirley lost wickets regularly and scored a disappointing 105. Jaeden Hooper was the best batsman scoring 35. Kings then batted positively to make a good declaration and leave Shirley 236 to win the game. Despite a much improved batting performance Shirley fell 46 runs short, losing their last wicket with only five overs left in the game. Caleb Blake (53) and Connor McLaughlin (49) starred with the bat sharing a 77 run partnership that at one stage swung the game in Shirley’s favour.

In an interesting side-line story. . . Jacob Murray, son of former Shirley Boys Old Boy and 1st XI player Brendan Murray, scored 74 playing for the Kings HS Junior XI.

Shirley BHS 105/10 [Jaeden Hooper 35] and 189/10 [Caleb Blake 53, Connor McLaughlin 49] lost to Kings HS 173/10 [Jaeden Hooper 4-36] and 167/5 [Jaeden Hooper 3-16] by 46 runs.

Volleyball

The Junior Boys Volleyball team hosted Kings in two five-set matches. This was a chance for the Shirley team to play a game with their new rotation, which was learnt the week before.

At the start of the day, the boys struggled to transfer the rotation into a game-pressure situation, as a consequence some of their core passing and serving skills suffered. However to their credit they perservered,  determined to compete with a very strong Kings side. 

We lost the first game 3-1. The second game started poorly with a big first set loss. The boys re-gathered and show greater mental toughness in the proceeding sets, and managed to take the game to five sets, losing the fifth set 15-9. The Shirley Boys team certainly improved over the nine sets played and had a better understanding of their rotation.

Congratulations to Kings for their 2-0 win. 

Thanks also to the families who hosted the Kings Boys. We have received excellent feedback.

Tennis

After careful organisation of the use of Shirley Tennis Club and a scrounge for billets, we were dismayed when only two players arrived from Dunedin - their top player had rolled his ankle and one missed the bus.

Undaunted, we arranged a series of doubles and reverse doubles and two sets of singles. The Kings’ students were getting rather tired after so many games. Inevitably Shirley won every set with little difficulty. Perhaps the highlight was the delicious lunch provided by the Food Tech department.