What a busy year 2023 has been! I say this because this is the first FULL year of sport that Erin and myself have gone through since starting halfway through 2019. That is crazy to think about, but also it has been exciting to have so many events and activities on the calendar that our students get involved in.

St Hilda’s students continue to be actively involved in sport with the school maintaining a 80% participation rate, over 20 sport options. Our most popular sports with over 100 students playing are netball, hockey, basketball and volleyball. These sports see a high number of competitive and social teams being formed.

Tournament success

With all major tournaments being held this year, it has been fantastic to see our St Hilda’s blue being represented across the country and our athletes showing huge potential. For the size of our school and number of students, we work really hard to achieve amazing results. Congratulations to our touch team for being crowned SISS Champions in March. Our Senior A Water Polo team finished 3rd at SISS and our rowing squad brought home 2 bronze Maadi Cup National medals. Strong performances from the whole group with particular achievement for Olivia Ollerenshaw, Perri Hore, Honor Garden and Georgia Graham. The Junior 9A Netball team has a great season and finished second at the Junior South Island Champs.

In Aerobics, Cassie Horo and Sasha Lamb finished 1st in their senior category at NZCAF Nationals and Chloe Woodhouse also came away with a gold medal in her individual section. Our cricket team topped the Otago region and qualified for our 14th National Championship in December. During the winter SISS week, we had 9 equestrian riders represent the school at the SISS event. This was a really exciting week, as it is difficult for these riders to attend school events around their club events. The team did incredibly well, finishing 3rd overall team. There were many great individual results as well. We wish all our teams good luck for their final events in December: Touch, Condor Rugby 7s, Cricket and NZSS Athletics.

Individual success 

Along with team success there have been many individual achievements. Individuals within team sport and results in individual events. Zara Geddes has continued her strong presence in athletics and cross country running, being selected to represent NZ in Australia. Maggie Dowling is currently overseas training and competing in Luge. Her aim is to gain qualification into the Youth Olympics in 2024. As mentioned above, Chloe Woodhouse in Aerobics, Ella Southby represented NZ in Netball attending a tournament in Australia playing for the NZ Secondary School team. She has also just recently been contracted as a training partner to the Southern Steel. Grace Hastie, Hannah Lithgow and Charlotte Va’afusuaga have had an excellent year in rugby. All making the Otago Spirit team, attending NZU20 development camps and Hannah being selected for the NZ Barbarian Women’s team. Chloe Deerness has been selected into the Otago Sparks Cricket team, following on from many St Hilda’s students achieving well in cricket. A number of touch players also represented NZ in the U18 age group this year, Brooke Duncan, Sophia Tutty and Demi McAlwee. Lily McGrath (year 9) competed at the NZSS Swimming champs and brought home a number of medals in her age group, so we look forward to her achievements in the pool over the coming years. Charlotte Aburn continues to strive forward in her surf lifesaving events, finishing first in many water and on land sections. Anahera Koni is doing wonders in the golfing world, being selected to represent Otago.

There is sure to be many more incredible achievements from sport outside those organised by the school. Remember that we would love to celebrate all sports that any student is part of, so please email these throughout the year.

School Events

Our 3 school events this year went off without a hitch. We had great weather for both the Athletics and Cross Country days and with new house names this year (Aston, Richards, Bentham and Thomson) these days provided new excitement for cheerleading and gaining house points. Swimming Sports is always a fun event and a chance to join in for some novelty relays and have a splash in the water. Congratulations to all our school champions in these events, a number of you broke school records in the process.

Summer and Winter Quadrangular Exchange

This year, both summer and winter exchanges saw the 5 sister schools come together and compete at both events. Having 4 sports, still makes this a quad!  Football and Cricket were played for the first time and all teams competed hard against Columba, St Margaret's, Craighead and Rangi Ruru.  

The sports department is a very busy space, but a lot of the teams can not run without the support and help of passionate volunteers. The school is very fortunate to have amazing coaches, managers, teachers in charge, officials and sideline support. Thank you to everyone that has assisted a team in any way this year. Each year it seems harder to source new help, so Erin and I appreciate those that put their hand up.

As always at this time of year, we also have to say goodbye to coaches and staff that may be moving on. We would like to say a massive thank you to Mr John Janssen who has been the TIC of football for over 20 years. John is retiring from teaching and the team will very much miss his passion for the sport and the organisation he brings to the role. Thank you also goes to Janine and Roger Southby. Both have been heavily involved in Netball and Basketball over their daughters' Grace and Ella’s time here. Janine has seen great success with her Year 9 team winning junior South Island Championships in 2019 and the senior team winning the Otago/Southland champs (during Covid 2020) and qualifying for nationals in 2022. Roger has managed and coached basketball over the last few years as well as being our Sports Council Chairman for the past 6 years. Clare Challis has also been a parent representative on the Council for the past 2 years and she has stepped down for 2024.

Erin and I wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a relaxing summer break.

Rachael Parker
Director of Sport

Sport Prefects and Liaison Reports

From Billie Crowe and Demi McAlwee

This term has flown by so fast! Summer sports got underway with many students participating from competitive to social levels, in many different sports codes. There has been great sportsmanship, determination and skill level demonstrated by St Hilda's students in local competitions. Each and every one of these students have created an amazing culture in each sporting code. We feel as though this is very special and something that we feel is so important that it can be carried on in the future. As the year starts to wrap up there are a lot of exciting tournaments and competitions on the calendar. These include the 1st XI Cricket Nationals, Senior A Touch Nationals and Athletics Nationals. These events are always very exciting and are a great opportunity for our athletes to showcase the hard work they have put in throughout the year. 

Thank you for the opportunity to be your Sports Prefects for 2023. We have really enjoyed getting more involved within the school community and giving back to the school that has given so much to us.

Thanks, Billie and Demi :)

Liaison Reports

Volleyball (Molly Gaffaney)

Over the term the Senior A, Junior A and social teams have had a fun season competing locally at their weekly competition. The seniors only had a short season to finish the year while the Junior A Team had their Otago Championships and South Islands. After Otago Championships, they placed 7th which qualified them for Division 3 at the South Islands. They fought hard all tournament with lots of nail biting games and ended up coming 1st place in a final against Queen's High School. They still have their last game to play which is for 5/6th in the Otago Volleyball competition.

Tennis (Molly McKenzie)

This term, we have had a few girls playing Tennis for the school competition on a Thursday after school. There were mostly Year 9 and Year 11 teams from St Hilda's that were involved in this. They found the games fun and it helped to keep their skills up. The teams they played were good sports and this made it more enjoyable for the girls participating.

Summer Hockey (Anna McClean)

After the winter hockey season ending, we see summer hockey starting up for those keen enough to keep a stick in their hand over the summer. Summer Hockey is a 6 a side game which is played across half of the turf. This mainly involves junior students as the seniors are on exam leave. St Hilda’s has four teams entered across the grades. All the teams had great results and all enjoyed playing some hockey in slightly warmer weather.

Athletics (Renee Willis)

Athletics at St Hilda's have had a great year this season with many achievements throughout all the year groups. A group of girls competed in the Otago Secondary Schools' Athletics Competition who then went on to compete in the South Island Secondary Schools' competition. We had many 1st place and 2nd gettings in this competition as well within all the disciplines the girls competed in. At the South Island Secondary Schools' competition, Billie Crowe gained 2nd place in her 800m race and 3rd in the 1500m race. Zara Geddes also placed 2nd in the 3000m and 1500m races. Charlee Farquhar gained 1st in Discus, 3rd in Shot Put as well as 7th in High Jump. Renee Willis gained 1st in both Hammer Throw and Shot Put at this same event. This means that all of these girls will be able to compete further at the National Secondary Schools' Athletics competition at Christchurch’s ‘Nga Puna Wai’ Athletics grounds from the 8th -10th of December with the outstanding results they have achieved. In the Junior school, Mia Braithwaite, Elzanne Hamman, Vicky Aburn, and Ruby Burgess competed in the Otago Championships. We saw great results on this sunny day with many placing and making finals within their disciplines. A big congratulations as well to all of these girls who all competed hard for St Hilda's and secured great results as well as those competing for a non-competitive and enjoyable time. 

Finally we especially recognise Zara Geddes (Year 13) for not only furthering her academic but also her Track and Field future at Harvard University in the USA next year. We wish Zara good luck to her for all the future holds, on and off the Track!

Touch (Sophia Tutty)

This year in 2023, Touch is already underway with many teams having played in various games across all grades. We currently have three Year 9 teams, two Year 10 teams, two Senior teams and one Senior A team competing in the Otago Secondary Schools' Tuesday night games. Following on from Term 1, all of these teams have had a strong start to the Term 4 season and it is looking promising for St Hilda’s teams to be getting into finals this term.This term our Senior A team have been training and building up for the NZ Secondary Schools' Touch Nationals that is held in Rotorua. This is a three day tournament starting from the 8-10th of December. This term St Hilda's have also made a Junior A team that has been getting some great results.

This season, our Senior A competed in the Quad tournament, they came away with a win against Craighead, St Margaret’s and Rangi Ruru and a loss to Columba College, finishing in second place. At Otago Secondary Schools' competition they came across Waitaki Girls' High School, East Otago, and Columba College coming in at second place, losing to Columba College in both round robin and finals.

They were just away at the South Island Secondary Schools' Touch competition held in Christchurch. After coming top in our pool we came up against Columba College in the final. This time with a great team effort we came away with a 3-1 win having led for the whole game. This was a great way to end their Touch campaign for Term 1. We are looking forward to Nationals in Rotorua in Term 4.

Our Junior A team has also had a very successful Term 4, currently they are waiting to play the final for the Otago Secondary Schools' Junior A Girls Grade against Queen's High School. The team was unbeaten throughout the King's Touch Day Tournament beating Columba, Queen's and Otago Girls' High School, placing first overall. They also had a trip up to Timaru where they played Rangi Ruru and Craighead and also placed first overall.

Ultimately, this year has been a very successful and enjoyable year for Touch Rugby at St Hilda’s Collegiate across all age groups.

Water Polo (Honour Birks)

2023 has been a very successful year for Water Polo at St Hilda’s. Our Term 4 competition is currently underway with three St Hilda’s teams entered across the grades. Our Junior A team has just finished their South Island tournament in Blenheim where they ended up 3rd! An amazing achievement from this team after lots of hard work and training. Our Year 7 and 8 team also competed at the South Island tournament in Dunedin where they had a successful tournament and developed very well as a team. Final games are played this week so best of luck to all of the teams competing in these games and we will look forward to another successful year of Water Polo in 2024.

Golf (Molly Pryde & Ruby Cochrane)

This year, we as Golf Liaisons have been stocked with the turnout at Shelly's Golf lessons on Thursday afternoons in Term 1. It has been awesome to see everyone's smiling faces out there, just giving it a go. Golf has given a lot of girls the great opportunity to get outside and enjoy trying something new and having a few laughs on the way. The girls have learned the basics of putting, chip shots, and using the lower irons on the range and have come out of the lessons with Shelly with more skills and knowledge like keeping composed on the backswing, having your eye on the ball when hitting, how to properly grip the club and heaps of other good stuff. Golf has started up again as the sun is starting to shine and we look forward to using this time to get out on the course and play some games putting our new skills to the test this summer and over the break! We are excited to get back into the Golf season at St Hilda’s next year.

Cricket (Megha Senthilkumar)

We have had a great Cricket season so far. On Mondays and Tuesdays, the Cricket squads have been practicing batting, bowling and fielding. On Wednesday afternoons the older girls were able to continue to practice their skills on the field, having time to play cricket in mixed teams with other schools in Dunedin such as Columba College and Otago Girls' High School. Here they managed to beat the opposing side every time. On top of this more Cricket is coming up in the holidays for the 1st XI after winning their qualifiers final against Otago Girls' High School in Term 1. The girls are extremely excited as Nationals is fast approaching to be held on December 11-13th in Lincoln, Canterbury. With many more games and tournaments coming up next year, all the girls will continue to train hard. 

A huge thank you to Bronnie McClean, our lovely Manager, for all the behind-the-scenes work she has done for organising everything for Nationals. Additionally another massive thank you to our outstanding coach Kate Ebrahim for continuing to support us and Girls' Cricket in general being the first person to create the 2nd XI Cricket Team for St Hilda’s. Kate has helped all of us improve our abilities, with this we can't wait for all the opportunities that are headed our way in the future!