Can you believe we are over halfway through the first Term of 2020. A jam-packed Term so far with many girls adjusting to new routines and habits. Many of our summer activities have been ticked off the list but as we head into Autumn, Summer Sport is still thriving. As always we love to hear what our fabulous SMC girls have been up to in the world of sport. Please email any news to louise.eder@stmargarets.school.nz

Athletics
Lily Cockram Year 12 recently competed in the Athletics Canterbury 2020 Track and Field Champs at Nga Puna Wai.
U18 200m 1st
U18 400m 2nd
Congratulations Lily.

The Athletics New Zealand Team would like to invite students to join us for the Jennian Homes New Zealand Track & Field Championships at Ngā Puna Wai Sports Hub on Friday 6, Saturday 7 & Sunday 8 March. Head along for the weekend, or hit the Friday evening super session from 6pm, with a star-studded line up including Tom Walsh, Hamish Kerr, Dame Valerie Adams, Edward Osei-Nketia, Julia Ratcliffe and more. This will be the last chance to see our top athletes compete in New Zealand before the Olympic and Paralympic Games. Watch them soar, throw, run and jump from just metres away.
Tickets are available to purchase online from Eventbrite, or on the door;
Adults $15, Children (6-16 years) $5, Children 5 and under free

Equestrian
Eight girls and their marvellous ponies competed at the Canterbury Secondary Schools Showjumping at McLeans Island last Wednesday,
Indy Phillips Y9, The Muffin Man
Molly Walker Y7, Antontado
Tess Morgan Y10, Awatuna Velvet Rose
Cassidy Causer Y10, FH Pipsqueak
Sophia McKendry Y10, Kaimai Rua
Evie Eaton Y13, Mischief Managed
Fabriana McQuarrie Y10, Yippee Ki Yay
Meg Glassey Y10, Kemdale

Golf
We have a new sport on offer here at SMC, Golf. Seven girls head to Hagley Park on a Wednesday afternoon to learn from Canterbury Golf Pro, Jason Tilley. Lessons started last week with seven keen golfers from Year 8-10 taking part. Apart from sore hands, they all enjoyed their first hit out. Keep up the good work girls.

Gymnastics
Lexie Boon and Lilly Eastmure (Year 6) went to the Inaugural Aesthetic Gymnastics Competition in Sydney last week. It was their first Competition for the 2020 season as part of the New Zealand Federation of Aesthetic Group Gymnastics team ‘Glory,’ from Southern Ballet. The team competed in the 10-12 years age group and successfully took first place in the Inaugural Marival Cup. Congratulations to you both and your team.

Junior School News
How cool is this!! Our Year 4 hockey team the "Wildcats" were given the opportunity to cool down with the Blacksticks on Sunday. 

Flippa Ball
Flippa Ball is back and the girls are loving the opportunity to practise their skills and drills in the pool.

Swimming sports Y4-6
Another successful Swimming Sports has been completed and once again many thanks to all of those who helped out on the day. Even though it was not the warmest of days, the smiles were happy as our Junior girls swam their way to the finish lines. Congratulations to all of our swimmers. A full list of results is below. 

Supa Polo
Skye Turner Y13 and Claudia Hundleby Y10, both played in the South Island Supa Polo at the amazing Waireka Polo Farm in Sefton. A stunning day with perfect conditions.
Skye reports, “Claudia Hundleby (Y10) played for Rangiora High School, as they were short of players for their team. Claudia played three games and each game is seven minutes long. Claudia and her team won C grade, Great achievement! Claudia had fun in the Rangiora High School team and it was good to hear that they were very welcoming.
Skye Turner (Y13) played in the A grade with, Tom Turner (STAC), Tom Wells (STAC), Max Dormer (Medbury) in the St Andrews team. They played in a Round Robin with three teams, Christ College, Auckland, St Andrews.

A grade results
Stac vs Auckland - Auckland won 4-1
Auckland vs Christ College - Auckland won 6-0
Christ College vs Stac - Stac won 2-1

Overall it was a successful day, with school-aged children aged from 7 to 18. A great learning curve for everyone and a fun day out. Many thanks to Charlie Wood and the team at Waireka for allowing the day to run, and providing all of the horses for everyone to have a fun day.”

Tennis
A huge Congratulations to our Fabulous St Margaret's A Tennis Team, who for the fifth year in a row have won the South Island Secondary Schools Tournament in Timaru. This team consists of Abby Mason Y12, Ruby Young Y10, Emma Mason Y10, Ava Coates Y12 and Georgia Hague Y12. Fabulous job girls.
Congratulations also to our SMC Cup Team, who travelled to Timaru to play in the SISS, Jordan Silcock Y11, Jessica England Y12 and Kirsti Fox Y12.
Congratulations Ruby Young (Y10) who has been selected for the New Zealand Under 14 Girls World Junior Tennis Team. This selection means that Ruby will represent New Zealand at the Asia-Oceania qualifying event to be held in Carrara, Australia March 22-27. What an amazing achievement, good luck Ruby!!! 

Touch
The Touch Season has well and truly kicked off with all of our teams having played at least one game. Hagley Park becomes alive on a Wednesday afternoon as our Senior Teams battle it out on the field with some great games being played. Our Year 7 and 8 teams are also enjoying their games at STAC on a Friday afternoon.
Four of our Touch girls played in the Canterbury Nationals Age grade competition over the weekend of 15 and 16 February. Georgia Reed played in the U18 Girls Team, she writes “The weekend went really well with the U18 Girls Team finishing up 3rd. It was great to have the opportunity to play against other provinces who have a totally different game plan to what we have, and the improvement as the weekend progressed was impressive. Leading up to the Nationals, the only other provincial U18 Girls Team we had played was Otago, who we also meet in our pool play at Nationals. Playing an outstanding game, we beat them by 2, which set us up to be top of our pool and cross over with Counties Manakau. We had a hard-fought Semifinal with nothing going our way and unfortunately resulted in us going down by 1 try. We then bounced back to play a great last game, beating North Harbour 4-2 in the 3rd and 4th playoff.”
Cara Mustchin Year 11 and Karereatua Williams Year 11, both played in the U16 Girls Team. After a bit of a slow start on Saturday, the team pulled together and played some great Touch on Sunday. All in all a great experience.
Ally Booth Year 10, writes “I was in the U16 Mixed Division. Our team got 12th, tough competition but it was a great experience.”
Congratulations to all four of you, winning, losing, playing, either way, it all adds up to some fantastic experiences to take forward into your next games. On Saturday 22 February the SMC Super Touch Team played in the Belfast Canterbury Champs under the expert guidance of their coach Ella Hutchinson and the watchful eye of Sophie Beaumont their manager. The day was another stunner and the girls played some great Touch. They came in 4th, losing the 3/4th playoff to CGHS. It was good to see the girls working together as a team displaying a positive attitude and camaraderie. They are excited to see what the South Islands bring and will continue to train and play hard leading up to this. We wish them luck.
Georgia Reed our Touch Captain writes, “On the 22nd of March, the SMC Super Touch team competed at Christchurch Secondary Schools Touch Competition in the lead up to South Island Secondary Schools at the end of March. The team played well and progressed greatly with our performances increasing as the day went on. We had three tough games to start against Girls High, Burnside and Rangi with losing two games and drawing against Burnside. We then went on to play Riccarton, who we beat, after having a strong performance and then played Girls High again in our final game, which we unfortunately lost. We are continuing to improve and progress over the next 5 weeks leading up to SISS which is where we hope to have a strong performance and complete well against all South Island teams.” 

Weetbix Tryathlon
A glorious day was had by all who entered the Weetbix Tryathlon held at Jellie Park on 23 February. Such an awesome event for our girls to try their hand at, well done.

Balance Physiotherapy NZ
Balance Physiotherapy has opened their sponsorship applications for physio for the year. Students can apply to have no surcharges for physio for the year. Applications close Friday, March 13.

Check it out on the link below, 
https://www.facebook.com/BalancePhysiotherapyNZ
Or,https://www.dropbox.com/s/ve8nfet1qv2zgao/Application%20for%20Physiotherapy%20Sponsorship%202020.docx?dl=0