Term 4 sees the start of our Summer sporting codes. Our aim is to have as little disruption as possible this term for our weekly games, as cricket, korfball, rowing, touch, water polo and volleyball get underway. Good luck to all our teams, have fun and be the best you can be. Go SMC.

Athletics - Junior and Middle School
On Tuesday this week, we had perfect weather for our Junior and Middle School athletics day. The rain held off right until the end. Everyone participated from new entrants to Year 8. They ran, jumped and threw their way into every event with plenty of enthusiasm. Cheers could be heard from the supporters as each race started, encouraging the athletes to be as strong and as fast as they could. A huge thank you to Sharon Lloyd, Julie Seymour, and Bindy O’Callaghan for coordinating the day so smoothly, along with their team of helpers. Thank you to the senior students who helped out throughout the day encouraging the younger girls and making their day lots of fun.

Thank you to Wendy Shannahan who organised the new entrants to Year 3 in a tabloid circuit. This included egg and spoon races, sack races, and hurdles to name a few.

It just goes to show our family here at SMC always has such fabulous support, as the parent of two Old Girls, Tim Chiswell returned with his starter gun to get the day going. Thank you Tim.

A successful day all around.

Results will be published in our next newsletter.

Cricket
Cricket at SMC is continuing to thrive and our season is now underway. It has been a fabulous start to Term 4 with 100+ girls from New Entrants to Year13 taking up the opportunities we are developing to enjoy cricket at SMC.

Niamh McKenzie (Year 12) our Captain of Code and Lily Young (Year 9) were both in action for OBC and St Albans Premier Womens’ teams respectively on Saturday. Great to see our SMC girls out in the middle in this grade. St Albans snuck past OBC by 25 runs and Lily had great bowling figures of 3/18!!

Congratulations to Niamh on her recent selection into the Canterbury U19 Womens’ Squad. This is a fantastic achievement and we wish you well for your representative season ahead!!

Our Year 7-8 girls were in action against St Albans on the weekend in the T20 hardball weekly competition. They performed well and it was great to see them out on the park. SMC was chasing 145 for victory and came up short but their effort and commitment with the bat and the ball was fabulous! A huge thank you to the fantastic parents who braved the Hagley easterly for their support from the boundary. A special shout out to Heidi Crawford for being our chief scorer.

Our Year 5 and 6 girls kick off with their first game in the Monday Girls Smash Cricket League on the 8th November at Bishopdale. A huge thank you to Bindy O’Callaghan, Millie Spear, Frankie Jack and Maggie Hunt for supporting this team as they start their season and prepare for this competition.

This week our New Entrants - Year 4 girls start their cricket skills sessions. We are looking forward to having the girls work on their skills and having fun playing some cricket. The girls will be learning alongside their big cricket sisters. It is fabulous to see our senior girls stepping up and being positive role models in this context for our junior girls. The turf on a Thursday lunchtime is a hive of activity!!

I again want to acknowledge the continued support and guidance of our cricket programme that we receive from Rich Lough and Mandie Godliman from the Old Boys’ Collegian (OBC) Cricket Club. We are grateful for this connection so that we can give our girls a super positive cricket experience.

Bring on the season ahead 🏏
Amanda Hardy
TIC Cricket

A huge congratulations to our very own Amanda Hardy who works tirelessly for many sports here at SMC. We are proud to say her efforts do not go unnoticed and last week the Christchurch Metro Cricket Association recognised Amanda for all her hard work and achievements.

Christchurch Metro Cricket Association

Sir Richard Hadlee Sports Centre Volunteer of the Week.

This week we congratulate Amanda Hardy, who is being recognised as the Sir Richard Hadlee Sports Centre at Hagley Oval Volunteer of the Week, recognising her drive and passion in promoting girls cricket at St Margaret's College.

Amanda has put in place a diverse programme of events for new entrant primary school students to the school's 1st XI and everything in between.

She has also supported a number of senior students to train as coaches, who now have the ability to support younger students within the school.

The school 1st XI is a regular player in the Gillette Venus Cup, with St Margaret's also taking part in the Forward Foundation Shield. She has also helped develop the relationship with local cricket clubs.

Well done Amanda and we look forward to hosting you for a day of Cricket at Hagley Oval.

Canterbury Black winners at the South Island Hockey Tournament

Hockey

During the second week of the holidays, we had eight Year 9 SMC girls who were fortunate enough to be selected for the Canterbury Hockey U15 Tournament.

SMC had more Year 9’s chosen to participate than any other school which is exciting for SMC school hockey in the future. Such an honour to represent your region in any sport. Margo and Bianca write;

“SMC had eight Year 9 girls (out of a total of 20 Year 9’s) that were selected to represent Canterbury in the U15 South Island tournament over the school holidays.

Our team, Canterbury Black, was made up of 15 Year 9 and 10 players and we played six games of hockey over five days. This team included five Year 9 SMC girls and SMC coaches; Lotti and Felix. We only had three training sessions to gel together as a unit before we hit the tournament. The game was a step up speed and skill-wise compared to club and school hockey but it was great to be tested and to hear different coaching voices.

Our first game was against the West Coast and we drew 0-0, the girls appeared bigger and stronger but we were gritty. Our second game was a win against Canterbury White, the other Year 9 and 10 team. The weather was horrible and the turf was flooded! You would hit the ball as hard as you could and the ball didn’t move far. We realised we needed to change our tact and make our passes shorter. We won this game 2-0. We played Otago and Southland finishing in another couple of wins then drew with a very polished, skilled Central Otago side. These girls had won all their games convincingly!

The final was between Central Otago and us. We have never felt this nervous before a game… We played music to get us pumped up ready to hit the turf at Nga Puna Wai and were up for the challenge ahead! The weather had finally changed from the awful few days previously, we now had a warm and windy afternoon game. Our tired muscles hurt and we had no defensive subs. The game was tight, physical and could have gone either way as we both passionately wanted the win! Most of us ended up with a few good bruises but Canterbury Black won the game and the tournament 2-1!!

An amazing experience to play against top age-group hockey players from different regions in the South Island. The best part about being involved in these teams is the time you spend with your friends, new and old and the memories we all made.”
Bianca Skilton-Woods and Margo Dalling
SMC Year 9, Canterbury Black U15 girls

Photo – left to right, Bianca Skilton Woods, Izzy Brook, Lily Young, Millie Spear, Margo Dalling and our awesome coaches Lotti and Felix.

Sevens
Our Sevens team is gaining lots of experience out on the field. As Captain of the team, Cara Mustchin said, “it has been great to get out on the field and actually play real games. We are improving our skills and gelling as a team.”

The qualifying tournament was cancelled due to Covid, but this didn’t stop four Christchurch schools from getting together and playing each other, Villa Maria, Girls High, Rangi and SMC last Thursday.

Skiing
Kara Gooding, Year 10, fills us in on her skiing career to date;

“I have been skiing since I was two years old and started ski racing when I was 11. I train with Team Hutt, and train on the mountain Friday through to Sunday.

The races I have taken part in this year include two national points races, one at Coronet Peak and another at Mt Hutt, which was also the national championships. My best results were 6th place in my age group. I also competed at the South Island championships at Mount Hutt, and the National Youth Championships at Cardrona where I finished 7th overall in my age group. The final races this year were the South Island junior inter-field races at Mt Hutt where I won three golds and a silver medal.

The SISS champs was a really fun day. When we first got up the mountain we collected our bibs and headed out for some warm-up runs. After inspecting the course, which was a smooth and fast GS course, we headed to the top of the course to prepare for our race. Each person got to ski the course twice, with a combined time from the two runs making the final results. It was a very fun, exciting and successful day where SMC won the girl's team event and I individually placed second within the girls' category. I really enjoyed skiing around with girls from SMC in multiple year groups and girls from other schools I knew through ski racing. Once our racing was over we went out for some free skiing down the towers as it was a great bluebird day.

My hopes and dreams for my future within ski racing is to make the New Zealand youth development squad and to place at the national points races.” 

Year 13 leavers
Thank you to Charlotte Parker and Georgia Dawson who this week share sporting memories of their time here at SMC;

“My sporting memories at SMC began seven years ago when I first started at St Margaret's. Over these years I have been involved in a range of sports including Netball, Basketball, Rowing, and this term I started Sevens rugby. Sport has always been a big passion of mine and I am so grateful for all the opportunities that I have received. For me, it's always been about the support and culture of the team environment that fuelled my energy. Sport allows you to make so many amazing friendships, memories and learn lifelong skills. In my last couple of years, I have also had the opportunity to coach both middle school and junior school netball teams. I have loved getting to know them and being able to pass my knowledge down to the younger girls. It is so rewarding watching them improve week after week and always have a smile on their faces.

Training is the underlying point of any competitive sport. As anyone involved in sport knows, you go through some tough moments when you wonder what you're doing this for, and if there will ever be a light at the end of the tunnel. However, what always kept me going was looking around at my team/crew knowing that you're all doing this together, trying to achieve the same goal. It's hard to think of only one memory that stands out, but I will never forget that feeling of being the first over the finish line in my rowing U16 eight race at Maadi 2019. Seeing my coaches, family, and teammates on the bank cheering us on, as well as seeing everyone in my crew smiling and hugging all made the hours of training worth it.

If I have to give one piece of advice when it comes to sport it would be that you don't always have to be the best, just do your best. There will be times where you will suffer from disappointment from results or miss selection of teams/crews, but it's what you do next that matters. Motivate yourself to achieve those goals that you've set or even help your teammates to strive for their goals, as it will only push you to become better. Thank you to all the coaches and teammates over the years. It has been amazing to make so many memories and I have really appreciated everything that you have done for me. I have been pushed outside my comfort zone and learned so many key skills to be a great leader and a teammate. Through SMC sport I have had some incredible experiences and I will definitely miss not being a part of it next year.” 

Charlotte Parker

“My name is Georgia Dawson and I am a Year 13 student at SMC. I am about to leave school and as I reflect on the last five years, a huge part of it would definitely be school sport. I took part in many sports for fun, but my main focus was Rowing. Rowing at St Margaret’s was one of the best decisions I could have made. I learnt so many key skills and values that will carry me through life and made friends and memories that I will remember forever. One highlight of my time rowing for SMC was my under 16 season. We had a very fun season, including many laughs, hard work, and memories. At Maadi, our Under 16 8 went into the A final with the 6th fastest time. However, all the hard work paid off and we unexpectedly ended up winning the race. The feeling of crossing the finish line in 1st place with 8 other amazing girls is a feeling I will never forget. I could not imagine the last five years without rowing, school rowing is a once in a lifetime opportunity and I would encourage all young girls to give it a go!”