With the business end of the summer sport season upon us we can reflect and celebrate all that has made our girls everyday sporting heroes.

In individual and team events we acknowledge the heroes who have worked tirelessly for themselves and for their teams. Those girls who turn up to meetings, especially the taxi meetings, those who arrive at trainings on time and with all the correct gear, those who play hard and play fair, those who thank the opposition, the officials and their coach despite the result, those who are playing for the love of their sport – we salute you all. You are our true heroes and I thank you for your contribution.

We congratulate all teams who have finished their summer sport season regardless which end of the grade you finished. Please remember to thank your coaches and managers - they are superheroes too.

We are looking forward to seeing and hearing from those teams and individuals who will be competing over the next 10 days in Regional, South Island or New Zealand events – wear the SMC uniform with pride and be not only an everyday superstar but also a superstar everyday.

Archery
Katie Ellis has been selected by Archery New Zealand to represent New Zealand in the 2018 World Archery Oceania Championships to be held in New Caledonia in July. Katie will be shooting in the Junior Women (U20) Recurve Division

Cycling 
In January Hannah Bartram was selected into the New Zealand Road Cycling team and will now race at the Oceania Road Championships in Tasmania next week in both the time trial and road race in the U19 division. Pretty impressive Hannah. Go well!

Jenna Borthwick attended the Age Group Track Nationals in Invercargill last week and competed in the U17 grade for Canterbury. Jenna had a great meet winning Gold in the individual 500m time trial and sprint race and Bronze in the Individual 2km pursuit. She also picked up another Gold in the team’s sprint and Bronze in the teams’ pursuit. Jenna will compete in the National Schools’ Track championships in Cambridge next week.

Karate
Jamie Marshall (Y9) competed at the Canterbury tournament last weekend and defended her title winning the U13 kumite division.

Nadia Edmond (Y13) competed and won the 16/17 years kumite and was third in the 16/17 years kata division.

Rowing 
With 16 crews in A finals and 2 crews in B finals SMC came away with nine medals from the South Island Secondary Schools’ regatta held at Lake Ruataniwha on 3/4 March.

Gold – U18 Four - Grace Loveridge, Alice Elworthy, Kate Harris, Gaby McKellar, Emily Young (cox)

Silver - U15 Octuple – Victoria Voice, Charlotte Parker, Grace Glassey, Rosa Foster, Maddie Jeffries, Charlotte Gilray, Georgia Dawson, Margot Lisle, Hannah Smith (cox)

U18 Novice Eight – Georgia Mackay, Charlotte Gilray, Lydia Pye, Anna Wilson, Maddie Jeffries, Grace Glassey, Georgia Dawson, Charlotte Parker, Gyda Heidtke (cox)

U18 Pair – Grace Loveridge, Alice Elworthy

U18 Eight – Grace Loveridge, Gaby McKellar, Kate Harris, Alice Elworthy, Emma Parker, Millie Crossland, Charlotte Darry, Lucy Botting, Claudia Betherll (cox)

Bronze - U15 Eight – Georgia Dawson, Isla Fulton, Maddie Jeffries, Charlotte Gilray, Alice Mcleod, Grace Glassey, Lydia Pye, Charlotte Parker, Gyda Heidtke (cox)

U16 Four – Charlotte Darry, Lucy Botting, Emma Parker, Amelia Parker, Grace Mitchell (cox)

U16 Eight – Lucy Botting, Charlotte Darry, Emma Parker, Isabella Gibson, Victoria Voice, Anna Wilson, Maddie Stead, Amelia Parker, Grace Mitchell (cox)

U17 8 – Emma Roberts, Gaby McKellar, Kate Harris, Harriet Kitchingman, Millie Crossland, Caroline Wells, Maddie Stead, Isabella Gibson, Claudia Bethell (cox)

The team attended the pre-Maadi camp in Cromwell last weekend and will assemble again in Twizel this Friday for the weeklong Maadi Cup.

Rugby Sevens
Lucy Jenkins has been rewarded for all her hours of training and has been named in an extended New Zealand U18 squad to attend camp on the 10 and 11 March. Following this camp, a team of 16 players will be confirmed to represent New Zealand at the Oceania event in April. To qualify for the Youth Olympics in October this team need to have success over their Australian counterparts.

We look forward to seeing more of Lucy in action in both the sevens’ game as well as her preferred 15’s game.

Softball
Well done to Trinity Mackley-Flutey (Y9), who was selected into the Canterbury U15 team. In January Trinity played in Invercargill where she was selected into the South Island U15 team. This team went on to compete against their North Island counterparts last weekend. Looking forward to more Softball achievements in the future from Trinity.

Tennis
South Island Secondary Schools’ tournament was held in Timaru from 2-4 March.

For the second year running our team of Abby Mason, Annabel Coates, Ruby Spencer, Elizabeth Andre and Sophie White cruised through the first three ties before they faced up against Rangi Ruru in the final match of the tournament.

After some tense games our SMC girls pulled through with a repeat of the 2017 score-line 4-2 to claim the title of South Island champion for 2018.

Triathlon
Amelia Persson, Year 13, travelled to Oamaru last weekend to compete in the South Island Secondary Schools’ duathlon. With both a strong bike and run leg Amelia won the senior title, adding to her 2017 SISS Triathlon success.

The Canterbury Secondary Schools’ triathlon was held on Thursday 8 March and our Year 9 team of Alice Davidson (run), Jemma Burrowes (swim) and Lucy Hamilton (bike) won the U14 teams event.

Water Skiing
At the recent Australia v New Zealand challenge Emily Milner came away with big smiles and five medals from the U14 grade. Silver in the girls’ slalom, trick and jump and PB’s in all three disciplines and gold in the girls’ overall and teams’ overall.

Water Polo
A great game for our A team in the final v Rangi Ruru ensured SMC finished the regular competition as the overall Canterbury winners. These girls head to Dunedin on Friday to compete at the SISS tournament then onto Div 2 Nationals in Rotorua in the holidays. Lots of great competition still to come.

Swimming
Results of the swimming sports can be found here