Basketball - Laura Ring

This term the Year 7&8 mini ball teams have been enjoying their games on Monday nights and are showing heaps of improvement. Our social teams have been going out there on Friday nights giving it a go and it’s great to see loads of smiles out on court. The Junior A team has had a strong start to the season, having some comfortable games as well as a great win in overtime against Otago Girls. The Senior A team have had some close wins and a few tough loses but are tracking well for the season. 

Despite some disruptions this term with players and coaches struggling with sickness, leading to numbers being down all teams have done well. We should expect this to be shown in some good results by the end of the season. Lastly, I’d just like to acknowledge the girls selected for Otago teams. Congratulations to the following students:

Ella Southby and Laura Ring in the U17A team. Perri Hore, Neve Black and Molly Gaffaney in the U15A team. Jannah Hooper, Caitlyn Ring and Kyla Ashton in the U15B team. Well done everyone and good luck for tournaments coming up in the holidays!

Cross Country - Zara Geddes

The Cross Country season got underway this term and our St Hilda’s girls had some excellent results, both within the school, province and country. Starting the winter season, we had many students compete in the OSSSA Cross Country series. It was great to see so many St Hilda’s girls getting out there racing. Kicking off the series was the Logan Park Road Race where St Hilda’s punched well above their weight, and Julz Hastie (Junior Girls) and Zara Geddes (Senior Girls) both took away second place. 

Next up were the two relay races; the Caversham and Otago Southland Relay Champs (held in Milton), with five St Hilda’s relay teams competing at each event. Once again the school took away some of the top spots: 1st in the Senior Girls in the Caversham Relays, along with 3rd, 4th and 6th in the Junior Girls. The next week in Milton we had even better results against the best teams in Otago Southland, with another win for our Senior Girls team and 2nd, 5th, 6th and 7th for our junior teams. 

It is great to see so much depth at our school and even those who aren’t winning the school cross country are still super competitive when faced with runners from other schools! Also this term was the Otago Champs. Notable placings were: Ruby Hore - 1st U14 Girls, Honor Garden - 2nd U14 Girls, Julz Hastie - 2nd U15 Girls, Billie Crowe - 1st U16 Girls, Zara Geddes - 2nd Senior Girls, and Maddie Cockburn - 3rd Senior Girls. St Hilda’s also took away the Senior Girls team title at this event. These are all very good achievements which our girls can be proud of.

Another significant event this term in the school calendar was our school Cross Country! It was a beautiful day for the event on a fantastic Ross Creek course, and it was great to see all of our St Hilda’s athletes giving it their best. This year saw the addition of a banner competition and all of the Year 9-13 girls starting together with a lap around the field before going into the Ross Creek Track. It was a great event and great to see a strong house spirit. Well done to everyone who took part - both to those that won or got the placing that they wanted, but also to the students who just made it round, which is an achievement in itself.

Rounding off the Cross Country season this term was the National Secondary School Cross Country Champs, held in Nelson. Although we only had one runner competing at this event, Zara Geddes won the NZ Senior Girls Cross Country title against a field of 103 runners from throughout the country. Zara was also selected for the NZ team and will be traveling to compete in Adelaide in August. Our school is full of Cross Country talent, so we can’t wait to see more of you out there giving it your best. Hopefully next year we will see even more of you at the Cross Country events - challenge yourself to give it a go, and you’ll be surprised with how well you can do!

Hockey - Ava Beens & Billie Crowe

St Hilda’s are having an exciting year with hockey. There are many opportunities for girls to take part in organised events like Quad, hockey clinics and many tournaments throughout all of the year groups. St Hilda’s have eight teams, ranging between all age groups and divisions. We have many students who take their hockey very seriously, making club and Otago representative teams. However, we have many teams who consist of players who just want to have some fun after school with their teammates, which is just as great. 

Hockey games are played on a Monday night for Division Two and Three players, Tuesday night for Division One and Friday night for Year 7 and 8 players. We have some amazing coaches, both parents and senior students contributing to making St Hilda’s hockey that much better. It is awesome to see others sharing their passions for hockey with younger students, bringing experience and excitement to the sport. 

We are already seeing some amazing results throughout the teams this hockey season. In Division One, we have the First and Second X1’s for St Hilda’s. Both teams have been playing well, showing great sportsmanship and grit, especially during busy and cold times. The First X1 team are at the top of the Division One table, with some great wins against tough rivals like Craighead (2-1 win) and Columba (1-0 win and 7-1 win). In Division Two we have the Third X1, Junior A and the Colts - all of which have been getting some wins and some losses too. Recently, the Colts beat Columba Second X1 2-0, the Junior A beat Logan Park First X1 6-0, while the Thirds lost to Queens First X1 5-1. All three teams within this division are playing awesome, with some much new talent emerging from these teams. 

We also have some good results throughout Division Three, with the Year 13’s and Junior B the two teams on the top of the table! In the Year 7 and 8 division, the girls recently had a huge 15-0 win against Columba, which is amazing as it is exciting. We are just hoping that all the exciting upcoming events can go ahead and the hockey season isn’t disturbed too much with these unprecedented times.

Netball - Bernice Cullen

Our St Hilda's netball season is in full swing with 17 teams taking the court every week. We have recently had the Otago Secondary Schools Tournament, where we had the 9A, 10A, Senior A, and Senior B competing. All of the teams made it to the finals but only the 9A’s got the win. A massive congratulations to the Senior A, Senior B, and 10A for placing 2nd in Otago which is a huge achievement! 

Our 10A, 10B, 9A, and 9B teams have also recently travelled up to Timaru for the annual Roncalli tournament. Our 9B team placed first in their grade with a win in extra time over Craighead, and the 10B came out on top over Timaru Girls, which is so awesome for our B teams to get an opportunity to play in a tournament like this. The 9A’s had a tough final against rivals Columba and went down in the final seconds of the game, and the 10A’s had some strong wins in their pool play but went down in the semi to Ashburton, finishing 3rd with a win over Roncalli.

In the Secondary School Competition, many of the SHCS teams finished in the top section of their grades which is fantastic. The teams are now into the start of Round 2, so we look forward to seeing them finish the season strong.

With representative trials and games getting kicked off, there have been several girls from St Hilda’s named in the Dunedin representative squads/teams - which is an amazing achievement! Good luck to the U18 team who are competing at the nationals and to the 9A and 10A who will be competing in the South Island Secondary Schools tournaments in their respective grades in the holidays. 

We are looking forward to hosting the annual Winter Quad tournament next term, which is always a highlight of the year for the Senior A to take on 3 other schools. This is also a good chance to get some good games in before the South Island Secondary schools for the Senior A, which will be held at the end of August in Timaru.

Football - Sophie Wylie

The St Hilda’s first XI football team have had a great first round of football in the girls Secondary School Competition. We are currently 3rd on the table, but are hoping to make progress during the next round. The Secondary School Competition games are every Thursday at 4pm and are usually played at the turf, which is great as that pitch is always accessible and is of great quality. 

Our current results from this year are, a 8-3 win against Queens High School, 3-4 loss against Columba College, 7-0 win against South Otago High School, 3-0 loss to Bayfield High School (this was due to our team having to default to Bayfield as we didn’t have enough players for that game) and a 0-0 draw against Otago Girls High School. We are hoping to attend the Satellite Tournament in Term 3, which will be a fun experience and where we will hopefully have a good result. The team isn’t getting their hopes up just yet, as due to COVID-19 the past two tournaments have been cancelled. All around our results from this year have been positive and have allowed us to have room to improve. I am looking forward to the rest of the season and I can't wait to see how much more improvement we will have as a team.

Trapshooting - Rosa Smith

Trapshooting has been off to a great start this year. We have had some new talent join our team, with students from across all the senior year levels and 2 new Year 10’s. So far this year we have competed in 2 competitions with much success. Rosa Smith did particularly well in the secondary schools intercollegiate shoot in Invercargill, winning High Over All Girls in the point score and High Over All in single barrel as well as winning the High Over All, Girls High Gun award. We had another competition in Dunedin recently with more great results. 

With many competitions to come in the rest of the season, with the Nightcaps, Scott Shield shoot coming up next, it is going to be very exciting to see where our team will go in the future. Competitions are held on weekends with typically about one a month, with Nationals and South Islands being held in Christchurch in the Term 3 holidays. 

Our team of 6 has doubled since last year and the growing interest in this sport is very exciting. Our students range in shooting ability with 3 of us up to competition level and 3 just starting out, but improving greatly. We have practice once a week on a Wednesday afternoon, with an optional practice on Sunday mornings. We are lucky to have Mr Sutherland helping to manage our team this year, supporting us at away competitions and at practice, along with our amazing coach John Fooks, helping us improve in this unique sport.

Aerobics - Issy Tierney

All of the girls had been training super hard in the last 2 terms in preparation for the New Zealand Open Competition that was held on the 18th of June up in Christchurch. We had great results from this competition. Amp'd fitness team (Molly Wagner, Stella Rathbone, Bridget Sinclair, Issy Tierney, Amelia Johnston) came 1st in FISAF Senior Fitness Teams section, the Spice Girls (Liesel Tolson, Lindsay Black, Lucy Burke) placed 2nd in the Secondary Fitness Team category, Molly Wagner placed 6th in Secondary Novice Individual, Sophie Wagner placed 6th in her Intermediate Individual, Chloe Woodhouse placed 2nd in Senior Secondary Individual, Chloe Woodhouse and Immy (Chloe's teammate from OGHS) placed 1st in the FISAF Teams, Isla O'Neill placed 1st in pre-choreographed Secondary Individual, Isabella Tierney and Bridget Sinclair placed 1st in Senior FISAF Pair, Chelsea Mitchell placed 12th in pre-choreographed Intermediate Individual and Liesel Tolson placed 9th in Junior Secondary Open Novice Individual. 

These were spectacular results from the girls who competed in an extremely tough competition. It was great to have so many of the routines ready and looking so incredible this early on in the season, it was definitely an amazing way to start off the competitions for the year. The girls are now training hard for the Otago Regionals coming up in August, in order for them to qualify for the New Zealand Championships which will be held in September. Good luck everyone!

Curling - Amy Simpson

For curling this term we have two novice teams and one experienced team. We have been playing really well this season, with a couple wins here and there which is great as we are all still learning. Curling this year for all the girls is more about gaining experience rather than winning, this allows us to be proud of what we achieve even if we don’t play the best. We are quickly making progress and are hoping to have more teams participating in curling next year. 

We play every Wednesday night, novice from 5-6pm and experienced from 6-7:30pm, so parents are more than welcome to come along and watch their children play! We have an opportunity coming up for the teams to go to Naseby for a training camp during the school holidays. Curling is a good way to spend some time after school playing a chill game and getting to know people from other schools, while also gaining knowledge from the experienced coaches. It is always something the girls look forward to playing every week!

Badminton - Sienna Wright

This term our social and competitive teams have improved a lot, with games every Tuesday after school. The multiple social teams from both the junior and senior school have had a great season playing with their friends and have really developed their game throughout the term. Our competitive team has drastically improved throughout this term and although they lost games, they consistently showed moments of promise. The amount of players is an increase from last year and we hope to carry this momentum into the future.

Rugby - Grace Hastie & Anya Clark

With the start of the rugby season commencing in the middle of Term 2, we have had some amazing results so far. We had a strong start to the season with four rounds of 7’s. We had two very strong senior teams and one junior team. Both of our senior teams had tough competition, with both teams placing in the top 4. Our junior team had a strong sevens competition and it was a great chance for us to get some of the new girls introduced to the game.

Our junior team is made up of a range of girls who have played before and those who are new to the game. Over the past couple of weeks, they have had some wins and losses, but have really grown as a team culminating in a fantastic display of teamwork and exciting rugby in their game against South Otago High School on Wednesday night. The girls won 49-10 with outstanding defense and strong runs. It was really great to see them communicating and supporting each other on and off the field. We are really proud of the girls and look forward to the rest of the season, with a focus on ruck security and supporting the defense. There is some great talent coming through looking forward to playing alongside them in the 1st XV next year.

Our first 15 then played an inter-school 15’s game against Southland Girls as a pre-season game. This gave us a great chance to see where we were standing when it came to the 15 aside game. We came away with a hard-fought win, winning 19-0. It was a physical game with our girls showing the strength of our defense and the speed we have on the wings running in our tries. We then started our local competition starting off with a close game against Otago Girls where we narrowly lost 17-19. After this game, we rebuilt to come away with two wins in our next two games. Winning 34-0 over Columba and then 49-12 over South Otago high school. These were both impressive and hard-fought wins for the girls. We have another round of round robin games and then we go into the semis and finals. It is great to see the growth and development that our girls have had over the last few games and we hope to take this momentum into the next round!

Orienteering - Alice Bennett

There were three events in the Orienteering Schools Series in Term 2: Chingford Park, Forrester Park, and Tomahawk, and they were run over a series of Sundays. There were courses of various difficulties available for students to choose from, with points being won depending on how fast your time was. 

St Hilda’s was represented by six students from Years 7 to 10. At the end of the series, points were totaled with certificates awarded to the Top 3 in Intermediate and Junior categories. After the Series, there was the Otago Schools Championships, which was run over two courses; one Sprint urban course around John McGlashan College and the other a longer course around the Waitati 4WD Club grounds. Two St Hilda’s students braved the very wet and cold conditions and both placed first in their category!