Welcome back to Term 3. We are ready to hit the ground running with a lot of exciting things happening this term with our winter sport. All our teams are now officially in a routine of regular games and it was awesome to hear the whistles back at Hagley Courts on Saturday.

We have our Winter Quadrangular tournament at the start of week three in Dunedin, which will involve our usual codes of Netball, Badminton, Hockey and Debating as well as this year having Basketball and Football join the tournament. We wish all our girls the very best of luck as they compete down south. Our skiers are getting ready to hit the slopes, the equestrian team is chomping at the bit, our runners are gearing up for Zones Cross Country and our swimmers will be off to Hamilton for the NZSS Champs. Sports week is coming up, as are all our various tournaments throughout the school.. Phew supporters, get ready to cheer all our amazing SMC girls on and as always please get in touch if there is anything you would like us to include in the newsletter.

louise.eder@stmargarets.school.nz

Basketball
Another great game played by our Senior A Basketball team against Riccarton this week in our SMC gym. It is always good to have a home game and the extra support was much appreciated. We are proud to say that our girls took out the win and are sitting at the top of the table. Keep up the good work SMC.

Korfball
Huge Congratulations to Evie Leeson (U17), Scarlett Kirby (U17) and Tayla Hardy (U19) who have all been selected in the Korfball New Zealand 2021 Development Squads!
This is a huge achievement, and recognition for all the hard work they have been putting in, especially in a sport that is relatively new to all of them. They are now working hard to make the travelling team which will be attending the relative Korfball World Cups in 2021. Both squads currently consist of 24 players and will be preparing for the Korfball World Championships in their age group in Czech Republic between 2nd and 4th April 2021 (U19) and in The Netherlands June 2021 (U17). Eventually, 7 boys and 7 girls will be selected to travel to these tournaments.

Netball
Our 2020 Netball season is finally underway for our SMC teams with our Junior School girls taking the court for the first time on Wednesdays. Saturday saw our Senior B girls hit the court for game 4 of their season while our U12 to U19 teams got to pull on their playing uniforms and enjoy their first matches of the season. It was a chilly start for our teams with morning games, through to a very wet finish for our teams who played the 3.05 pm round. A timely reminder to dress for all conditions at Hagley Park.
Our Senior B girls had a tight tussle against UC and ended up with a 24-24 draw. It was right down to the wire and an exciting game to watch from the sidelines. Well done girls, you fought hard throughout the game playing some great netball in what were the best conditions of the day! After 4 rounds the girls are at the top of the results table and take on Burnside HS A this Saturday at 10.30 am.

Our Y 7/8 B team girls have started their season on a positive note with a fabulous 31-5 win over their Lyttelton opponents. After a long build-up, the girls were super excited to get out on the court for their first game of the season. It was a strong team performance for all four quarters of the game. The girls worked hard and created lots of turnovers giving their shooters plenty of ball, which they converted throughout the game. A great start girls!! Bring on week 2 for you!

Our Senior C and 11A girls have enjoyed some competitive training games in the lead up to the start of our season. The Senior C girls are playing in the U19 grade and had a tough first-up game against Middleton Grange where they went down 20-31. They had some strong patches of play and they played hard until the final whistle. Our 11A girls are in the U17 grade this season and had a super strong start against Cashmere High School E with a resounding 42-7 victory.

Our 9A’s girls had a tough start on Saturday and went down to arch-rival CGHS. The girls kept working hard until the final whistle and are keen to get back on the court this weekend.

It has been great to finally have all 26 of our SMC teams back out on the court in 2020. It is fantastic to see our girls playing hard and enjoying their netball. Our SMC umpires and Junior Whistlers are also enjoying the opportunity to be back officiating games this season! Thank you to all of our umpires as without you all we don’t have any games!!!
A huge thank you to all of our wonderful coaches, managers, staff and umpires who help with each of our teams each week. Your time and effort doesn’t go unnoticed and it is greatly appreciated by us all.

Wishing all of our team's good luck for this weekend’s games!! See you all at the courts.
Amanda Hardy
SMC Netball Convenor

Senior A Netball
Last weekend Wanganui Collegiate came down to Christchurch to play against St Margaret’s College, Rangi Ruru, St Andrews and Christchurch Girls High in some friendly preseason games. It is good to see these teams take the opportunity to develop their skills, keeping up the relationships that have been formed between these schools over the years.
The girls had a close game on Tuesday night against Technical before going down by 5 at the final whistle.

Old Girl Report
Olivia Mendonca

We are always so proud of our SMC old girls and it is a pleasure to find out what they have been up to since leaving St Margaret’s College. After a dazzling career as an SMC rower, winning gold at Maadi in the U18 8 in 2015, old girl Olivia Mendonca left the shores of New Zealand on the 12th August 2016 bound for the USA. Olivia was awarded a four-year scholarship at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina.
Olivia tells us about her time at Duke,
“Duke was exactly like you would imagine an American university to be, but so much more. It isn’t a huge University (the undergraduate population is around 6,000) but the atmosphere was something else. In good old American fashion, supporting other athletes was a significant part of the culture, especially attending Duke men’s basketball games, an absolutely unreal experience.

Duke has a huge Greek culture and the athlete population made up a large majority of the students. Both of these groups heavily dictated the social scene that I was in.

I had the opportunity to take some of the most interesting classes, I graduated in May 2020 with a Bachelor of Science in Psychology and a minor in Education and both of these programmes offered a plethora of incredible classes. My favourite class would have to have been The Psychology of Stress and Coping, as it was so fascinating but also extremely applicable to my life. It was an amazing opportunity to be taught by so many accomplished professors and researchers, especially in the field of psychology.

The rowing was intense, with training five-plus hours a day, six days a week with two or three separate practices a day. Our mornings on the water consisted of beautiful sunrises at 6 am and layering up in -8ºC weather and we were blessed to have a fantastic lake so close to campus. As you can imagine Duke has incredible athletic facilities, a weights room equipped with a Gatorade fueling station for smoothies and post-practice snacks, an athlete-only all-you-can-eat dining hall, an athlete-only study building with access to tutors for a wide range of classes and as I mentioned earlier athletes are very important in the world of Duke.

The team was my second family whilst I was at university, they were such a kind and supportive group of women that made Duke feel like home, which was so important for me as an international student. I was lucky to have such a great support network, the coaches were always offering their help and guidance and my professors were understanding of my athletic situation and willing to make compromises to benefit both my academics and athletics. Many of the people I met at Duke I will stay in contact with for years to come (even if they are on the other side of the world) as they made such a huge impact on my life. Saying goodbye to them all was particularly hard especially as we were robbed of our proper graduation ceremony due to COVID 19.

There were many highlights of my time at Duke - on a couple of occasions we beat our biggest rivals, the University of Virginia which was awesome. Seeing other Kiwi rowers, especially ones from St Margaret’s, at the different regattas, Taylah Eder (Tulsa), Star Davidson (Virginia), Ilaria Earle (Alabama) was like seeing a little bit of home and I was always so excited when I knew I’d see these other New Zealanders.

The standout for me was making it to the National Championships in my third year, as only 22 teams from across the country make it. This was only the second time for the university in the programme's history. Frustratingly even though COVID 19 took away our opportunity to attend Nationals, it was awesome knowing we had made the cut.

I am proud of both my sporting and academic achievements during my time at Duke. I was in the top eight (varsity eight) for my three and a bit years. We won a silver medal at the ACC (regional) championships in my third year and qualified for Nationals that same year. I was elected a team captain in my third year and awarded the team’s MVP in my final year. The final reward was to be nominated as an All-American rower in my final year, a huge compliment to my time in the States.”