by St Paul's Collegiate School

Squash season wraps up

The squash season finished successfully for our players.

WAIKATO SECONDARY SCHOOLS SQUASH CHAMPS

St Paul’s had two girls and six boys' teams in the Waikato Secondary Schools Teams Champs held on the dates of 28 July, 30 July, and 4 August.

The Girls' A team consisted of Nicola Boyd, Maia Kelly, and Nicole Chen. They had comfortable 3/0 wins against the Sacred Heart and Te Kauwhata College teams before a hard-fought 2/1 loss in the final to finish runners up in the Waikato champs in Division 1.

The Girls B team (Ella Day, Shelly Huang, and Keisha Noble) had two hard-fought losses before winning 2/1 against the Dio B team.

In the boys event, the A team of Lachie Scott, Mark McCluskey, and Gabe Pinvanichkul were runner up in Division 2.

The boys B team of James McLanachan, Marcus Pomare, and Matthew Ruetsch won Division 3, while St Paul’s Boys D team (Tiaki Lynn, Ben Beveridge, and Milan Hood) won Division 5.

In the Individuals Championships, our best results came to our two classy B graders Nicola Boyd who finished third and Maia Kelly fourth in the Girls Division 1 championships.

SQUASH NATIONALS 2020

St Paul's had two boys and one girl’s teams in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Champs held over the period of 7-9 August in Tauranga.

The Girls A Team of Nicola Boyd, Maia Kelly, Nicole Chen, Ella Day, and Keisha Noble were seeded eighth for the tournament and after a very narrow loss in their first match, the girls went on to win three of their remaining four matches with many in very tight circumstances. The girls showed a lot of grit and team unity to finish tenth from 17 teams.

Congratulations to Maia Kelly for winning the Overall Fair Player Award for the tournament.

Both boys' teams managed to improve on their rankings going into the tournament. The Boys A team of Lachie Scott, Mark McCluskey, Gabe Pinvanichkul, James McLanachan, and Marcus Pomare were seeded 26th. However, they improved throughout the tournament winning three of their five matches to finish 21st out of 32 teams.

The Boys B team Matthew Ruetsch, Anton Tynan, Kit Maguire, Tiaki Lynn, Ben Beveridge, and Milan Hood seeded 31st finished 29th and won two of their five matches.