As this week’s newsletter goes out many of our SMC girls are away on tournament all across the country. From Picton to Palmerston North, Karapiro to Christchurch, they are competing against other schools from around New Zealand. As results so far have come in, they have been included in this newsletter.

Watch out for the next newsletter hot off the press, to see how our teams and individuals have all faired and their final results. We wish all our wonderful athletes good luck for the rest of this week.

In the meantime, many more of our girls have been super busy and enjoying the wonderful world of sport. Catch up with what has been going on in the last two weeks and as always please feel free to get in touch with us at the Sports Office, with your stories and pictures. We would love to hear from you all whatever your chosen sport sport@stmargarets.school.nz

Assembly
The cups sparkled and gleamed after being lovingly polished, waiting in anticipation for their new owners. Our Sport Assembly for Term 1, was met with great applause and cheers as girls came up to receive their awards for Swimming, Athletics and Tennis. House points had been tallied up and with great apprehension, the Chris Lindsay Swimming House Cup was awarded to Matipo and the Mene Athletics House Cup was awarded to Kowhai. Once again congratulations to all those who received an award and to all those who supported our amazing girls

Athletics
The Canterbury Secondary Schools finals were held at Nga Puna Wai, on Saturday 23rd March. Congratulations to all our SMC athletes who made it through to the CSS finals. We have had some very hot days for competing but our girls managed to keep their cool and bring home some great results.
U14 Charlotte Sweney - 3rd Discus
U15 Olive Tuipulotu - 2nd High Jump
Scarlett Kirby - 2nd Discus
Jemma Burrowes - 2nd 800m
U16 Lily Cockram 3rd 400m
Elizabeth Cross 3rd 800m
U19 Anoushka Chiswell 3rd 100m
Hannah Bayliss 2nd 3000m
Open 4 x 400m relay 3rd Anoushka Chiswell, Jemma Burrowes, Emelia Surridge, Lily Cockram
On 8-10 March, Anoushka Chiswell competed in the Jennian Homes NZ Track and Field Champs. She brought home a Bronze in the 100m and a Silver in the 4x100m relay in the U20 grade. Congratulations Anoushka.

Duathlon
On Monday 25 March we had 14, Year 5-8 girls taking part in the Canterbury Primary Schools Duathlon out at Ruapuna Raceway. As seems to have been the case for many of our summer competition days, it turned out to be a very hot day once more.
Year 5
Charlotte Maxwell
Annabel Scott
Genevieve Surridge
Year 6
Hannah Millar
Masha Lukonina
Isabella Wilson
Aisha Ellwood
Year 7
Sophie Booth
Gemma Sitjes
Sophie Maxwell
Eve Tayler
Year 8
Chloe McNeil
Amy Jones
Poppy McNeil
The girls did very well and we had two top 10 finishes. Sophie Booth from Year 7 came 9th out of 108 competitors and Chloe McNeill came 9th out of 107 competitors. 

Equestrian - Western Showing
Some exciting news from Hannah Graham (Y13) who has been riding horses for the last 10 years, she writes, “On 24 March I received the South Island HiPoints Rookie Buckle 18/19 Season.” (see photo attached ). This is a fabulous achievement as Hannah has only been Western Showing for two years. Last year she received South Island Runner Up Hi Points Rookie.
Some highlights of this season have been
● 2nd in Senior Horse Trail at CWRA New Years Show
● 1st in Senior Horse Trail at Kawatiri Show
● 1st in Rookie Trail and Highest overall Trail score at Kawatiri Show
● Hi-Points Senior Horse at Kawatiri Show
● Hi-Points Rookie at CWRA Xmas Show and CWRA New Years Show and Kawatiri show
Well done Hannah, keep up the hard work.

Hannah Ferguson in Year 13 has been selected to represent the miniature horse of New Zealand Association in their youth team and will fly to Australia in the April holidays to compete against the Australian team.

She will compete in the National show against other top youths and will be judged by three judges, one from America, one from Australia and one from New Zealand. We wish Hannah the best of luck for this competition.

Indoor Football
Our gym seems to be always full at any time of the day. It is a great place for so many sports. Included are two photos of our Indoor Football team, kindly officiated by Mr McDonnell. Thanks also go to Mr Walker and Mr Thompson for their support of Indoor Football in Term 1. The girls have had a great chance to learn many skills and have some fun along the way. 

Long Distance Triathlon
Our Year 9's were so lucky to have current Australian Ironman Champion and European Long Distance Triathlon Champion, Laura Siddall, speak with them last Friday morning about resilience. She shared some of her hard times and reminded us that even if sometimes you feel down or you are having a bad day it doesn't change your sense of self-worth, you are still the same important person. Laura is a professional triathlete from the UK, whose recent wins include Ironman New Zealand 2018, and Ironman Australia 2017 and 2018. Thanks Laura for #empoweringgirls

MAADI Rowing
Our rowers are currently taking Lake Karapiro by storm, with some great racing so far. Day two had lots of SMC crews competing in heats and repechages. The middle of the week will see more of our boats through to the repechage races as well as semi-finals. All this hard work is leading up to the grand finale at the end of the week. For more information and to keep up to date check out https://www.rowit.co.nz
We wish all our crews, staff and supporters the very best of luck for this exciting event. Go SMC!

Polo
A huge well done to Skye Turner who has been selected in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Polo team. She travels to Australia in a few weeks to train and play a test match against an Australian team.

Softball
Our dynamic duo from Year 13, Liyah and Natashia Faga-Ieti have both been playing Softball since they were 10 years old. They are both accomplished sportswomen and are very talented in pretty much everything they try their hand at, from the field to the pitch to the court. They have played for Halswell Premier Womens for 4 years now. Positions: Liyah(second base and left field), Tash (centre field, right field, left field).
Their achievements this season with Softball have been:
● New Zealand U18 Girls National tournament in Hamilton representing Canterbury placed 3rd
● New Zealand National Open Club championships (played for Halswell Premier Women's Club ) in Wellington placed 13th
We congratulate your successes in Term 1 so far and look forward to following your respective sports in Term 2. 

Swimming
As with all sports, there is a lot of hard work, dedication and early mornings involved and that is just the training. Emily Barron Year 13, has had a busy and very successful start to 2019. She competed in the Canterbury Swimming Champs back in January and came,
● 1st in Open 200m backstroke
● 2nd in Open 100m backstroke
● 3rd in the 50m backstroke
Emily explained that all swimmers swim in the preliminaries in the morning in their particular age group (Emily was in the 17 & over). Then the 8 fastest swimmers from across all age groups go into the Open finals events in the evening. As you can see from Emily’s results, she did exceptionally well. All those early mornings have paid off, well done.

Tennis
Our Tennis Senior A teams have had a great start to tournament week at Wilding Park
v Queen Margaret won 8 sets to 7
v Westlake Girls lost 0-6
v Waimea College won 5-1
This set the girls up to play a semi-final v St Kentigern’s on Wednesday and guaranteed the SMC girls a spot in the Top 4 in NZSS Tennis.
Great work Abby Mason, Annie Coates, Sophie White, Ruby Young, and Emma Mason.

Touch
Our St Margaret’s College Super Touch team competed in the South Island Secondary Schools Tournament on the 23-24th March, at Belfast. The competition was fierce and the girls fought incredibly hard to earn 4th place. They lost the semi to Colomba and ended up playing Burnside for 3rd or 4th place. It was a huge game which went into overtime as it was a draw at full time. The players then went into ‘drop off’ where a player is reduced every 2 minutes until there are only 3 players left on the field. After every two minutes of play, it was still a draw. Finally with only 3 players aside we lost the point and came 4th. A huge congratulations to all the team who played so valiantly. We are so proud of you all.

Senior B Touch enjoyed a lunchtime game of Touch against some of our staff last week. (Photos included) Amanda Hardy organised her team, Tayla Hardy, Georgia Lassen, Charlotte Gilray, Molly Leckie, Liv Paterson, Lucy Roberts, Sarah Frizzell, Tammi MG, Mia McDonnell, to play against members of staff, Mr T, Mr Walker, Miss Beaumont, Miss O'Loughlin, Miss McLaughlin and Ms Hardy. To say it quickly became a competitive game is an understatement, with the staff keeping their dignity intact and winning the game. Maybe a rematch should be considered? Thank you to umpires Karereatua Williams and Cara Mustchin.

Volleyball
In an SMC first, our Volleyball girls made the final of the Canterbury Secondary Schools tournament.
Well done to our team for their second placing in Canterbury. Goooooooo SMC!!!!!!! 🇦🇹🇦🇹
And congratulations to Loveday Mossman-Catchpole and Mia Fanselow for selection into the CSS tournament team. 🙌
A great start for our Volleyball Girls at tournament week so far:
v Otumoetai College lost 0-3
v St Mary's won 3-2
v Western Heights 3-2
They have qualified in the Top 16 for the first time ever - what a huge accomplishment for our team, we are very proud of you all.
Keep up the hard work Loveday Mossman-Catchpole, Katie Hamilton, Mia Fanselow, Grace Mains, Francesca Molnar, Mackenzie Haycock, Millie Ness, Sophie Ness, Ellie Withers, Rosa Davidson, Annabelle Goodwin, and Ella Ballantyne.
Good luck to our Snr B & Jnr A Volleyball girls who are playing in the Satellite Tournament this week at Pioneer Stadium. Some great games being played from both teams and an awesome opportunity for these girls to gain valuable court time.

Water Polo
Congratulations to our most recent SMC champions - Water Polo A, winning the Canterbury Secondary School Champs last week with a 14-4 scoreline over Rangi Ruru. 🇦🇹🙌
Good luck girls for Tournament week at South Islands here in Christchurch girls. Congratulations