From the Sports Prefects - Billie Crowe and Demi McAlwee

Term 2 has been yet another busy term. This term the winter sports season is fully underway and very busy with many of the different codes competing in weekly competitions, and preparing for their tournaments. As well as the winter sports, there has been a lot of participation in different kinds of physical activity around the school, where we love to see people getting involved.

On Wednesdays, our Lunchtime Movements have been very successful with good participation from many of the younger students in the school, and we are always pleased to see people getting active. There has been a wide range of games this term including games, such as Dodgeball, Dance workouts and Ki O Rahi, this game was incorporated as a part of the Pacific Language Week to embrace our different cultures. We also had Global Running day on the 7th of June, where we had a good turn out of teachers and students that went on a run around the Moana Pool loop.

In Week 8 this term an initiative that we ran was the Replay Sports Gear Collection. This event was very successful and we are thankful for all the gear donated from the school community. We thought this initiative was very important as we were both willing to help the community in some way. The sports gear donated has been dropped off to Sport Otago, where they will distribute the gear to those who will benefit from owning a piece of their own gear in our own community.

We are looking forward to Term 3 with many exciting events coming up such as Winter Quad, Swimming Sports and Winter Tournament week. Along with the end of the winter sports season coming up. We look forward to seeing the St Hilda’s teams display their talent and team spirit over the coming weeks.

Thanks for a great term, Billie and Demi :)

Aerobics

With the aerobics season just starting this term, it is exciting for the girls to be continuing to learn and perfect their routines ready to compete at regionals which are being held in August, in hopes to qualify for nationals later in the year. Recently, some St Hilda’s athletes competed in the New Zealand Sport Aerobics Open competition, which was a great opportunity for the girls to compete and show off their hard work from throughout the year. Alia Ryan, Lindsay Black, Molly Luxton, and Elisa Fitzgerald all competed in heats. Sophie Wagner made it through to finals, and Bella Fisher and Chelsea Mitchell placed 2nd in the pre-choreographed teams. The fitness team, Adrenaline, including Molly Wagner and Lindsay Black, placed 2nd in the FISAF Grande Junior teams. All very good results for the girls.

Molly Wagner and Lindsay Black recently participated at the FISAF Pacific International Open competition, for the JSA fitness team 'Adrenaline', who placed third in the Junior Grande Team category.  

It is exciting to see these great results so early in the season, we are excited to see the rest of the aerobics athletes compete in August at regionals, and hopefully, there will be more great results for St Hilda’s!

Badminton

Throughout this term, St Hilda’s was still able to get many teams down on the courts playing socially and competitively on Tuesday nights. We were very excited to have so many teams entered and it was great to see so many teams getting great results. St Hilda’s had a lot of teams entered, some in the same grade. It was great to see a lot of juniors getting involved, and we look forward to Winter Quad in Timaru.

Basketball

At the start of this term, our Year 7 and 8 classes had the opportunity to have two Otago Nuggets come into school and take them for basketball skills. It was awesome seeing our students learn ball skills and how to shoot a basket!

The Year 7 Nuggets Basketball team has started the winter sports competition with a blast! Currently sitting second on the table for the All Stars Year 7 Girls Grade, they have won four out of their six games and have scored an amazing 210 points so far in the competition. The team is gelling really well together, is having heaps of fun each week and learning lots from their coaches. A big thank you to Caitlyn and Laura Ring for running practice sessions at school on a Friday, and extra special thanks to game day coach Annabel Hamman for being such a positive and encouraging coach to us all. Thank you for making basketball so enjoyable!

Team Members: Atanui Stevens, Arielle Fisher, Elloise Lee, Elzanne Hamman, Ruby Burgess, Ellie Beardmore, Amelia Bunn, Māia Koni, with Parent Coach - Annabel Hamman

Junior As -This season the Junior A team have won all but one game. We are improving every game thanks to our great coach Kiera and strong teamwork. Our team is looking forward to entering in the South Island Secondary School tournament next term and further developing our skills as basketballers.

Junior Bs - We are halfway through the season and after a rough few games we have improved more as a team and are ready for the next half of the season. We had a few players out with injuries and some not being able to make it to practices because of other sports but overall we have grown as a team, made friendships, and are having a good time. From game time to the bench chats, we always have fun. As a team, we have also made team achievements such as our team's first 3-pointer by Flo in our game against Columba A and a good win against Trinity Catholic College last Friday night.

The Senior A team has had a great season so far. This year, the Girls Premier Grade and A Grade have joined together to have more teams to play against. St Hilda’s has shown they are a strong team, having many convincing wins. The girls have won all games but one, only losing to last year's champs, Columba College, after a hard fought game. The team continues to improve with a goal of making the final at the end of the season.

Clay Trapshooting

St Hilda’s trapshooting has started off with a bang this year. Despite having to practice in the freezing cold, both Rosa Smith (Year 13) and our new shooter Isla Wilson have been getting some great results. Our first inter-school competition in Invercargill showed promising results, especially with this being Isla’s first competition. Isla got 2nd in the Ladies Point Score and Rosa got 2nd in the Ladies Single Rise. This success was continued into the following Dunedin competition with Rosa getting 3rd in the Ladies Single Rise. We also got to participate in a school interchange between John McGlashan, Columba and St Andrews College. Although we were not representing St Hilda's for this event it was still a fun and exciting competition to be a part of. We are now looking forward to competing in the upcoming South Island competition at the beginning of the holidays.

Cross Country

This term started off strong with the school's annual Cross Country being held in Week 2. The sunny weather was great and made it an enjoyable day with the House Banner competition occurring before the Cross Country. 

The results for the cross country are below.

Year 7 and 8 - 1st Ruby Burgess, 2nd Elzanne Hamman, 3rd Lydia Peters

Year 9 - 1st Kenzie McLachlan, 2nd Rosie Gaffaney, 3rd Zara Tisdall

Year 10 - 1st Grace Pope, 2nd Isla Wilson, 3rd Olivia Bezett and Zara Lunam

Year 11 - 1st Julz Hastie and Honor Garden, 2nd Freya Des Fountain, 3rd Georgia Graham

Year 12 - 1st Holly Rowcroft and Millie Roy, 2nd Molly Malcolm and Ruby Flannery, 3rd Mya Haigh

Year 13 - 1st Zara Geddes, 2nd Billie Crowe, 3rd Maddie Cockburn

The Otago Cross Country Series had many St Hilda’s students competing in both the relays and individual races. The Logan Park race had a relay and individual event this year. Honor Garden was 6th in the junior girl's race while Zara Geddes was 2nd, Billie Crowe 5th, and Maddie Cockburn 7th in the senior girl's race. The two relay teams placed 6th and 8th in the open relay.

The Caversham event resulted in both our teams winning, the Junior Gold team - Ruby Hore, Olivia Bezett, Charlotte Aburn, and Grace Pope and the Senior Blue team - Zara Geddes, Billie Crowe, Molly McKenzie, Maddie Cockburn. The following week the Milton Otago/Southland relay was held with the junior gold team continuing their winning streak, while the junior blue team - Liv O'Brien, Zara Lunam, Mia Wall, and Isla Wilson came in 5th. The Senior Blue team placed a respectable third. Otago Cross Country had many results, Bella McEntyre 4th and Isla Wilson 7th in U14, Honor Garden 1st in U15, Julz Hastie 6th in U16, Zara Geddes 2nd, Maddie Cockburn 4th and Billie Crowe 6th in U19. Overall it was great to see so many students giving the Cross Country series a go and achieving some amazing results.

Football

So far this term, school football has been very disrupted with weather and illness. The school's combined team with Taieri has played three games so far, coming in with two wins and a loss. We have been training hard as we are a new team with lots of beginners and also still trying to get to know the girls from the other school. The football team is looking forward to playing in Winter Quad for the first time and we are excited for more girls within the school to join and have a try at football. So if you are interested please don't be scared to come and have a go.

Hockey

This term hockey has gotten into full swing, with Dunedin weather being pretty reasonable for our teams on these winter nights. There are eight St Hilda’s teams entered across five different grades this season. Firstly we have two Year 7 and 8 teams this season, which is super exciting as the future of Hilda’s Hockey is looking bright. In the Year 7 and 8 grade both St Hilda’s Blue and St Hilda’s White teams have been having a good season so far with some good wins and the occasional loss. Moving on to the Secondary School grade starting in Division 3 we have the St Hilda’s Junior Development team, who were sitting 4th on the table after Round 1 but are looking to move up from here in the second and third rounds! Next up we have three teams competing in Division 2 including, the St Hilda’s Colts, 9As, and Senior Development. There have been challenging games for all teams in this grade, and it is evident that everyone is enjoying the competition. We have the 9As sitting at 7th, the Senior Development at 5th, and the Colts sitting at 4th on the table. Up in Division 1 we have our 1st and 2nd XI. In round one both teams enjoyed multiple trips to Oamaru to play Craighead and Roncalli 1st XI. The 2nd XIs are sitting at 3rd on the table and the 1st XI are sitting at the top of the table. In the April school holidays the extended 1st XI squad travelled up to Auckland as they were invited to St Cuthbert's annual ANZAC pre season tournament. The girls had games against Villa Maria, Diocesan, St Margaret's, Westlake Girls, and St Andrew’s. The girls came home unbeaten and ready to take on the season ahead. Looking forward into Term 3, we have play offs for the local competition for all teams, Winter Quad for the 1st XI, and Tournament week for the 1st and 2nd XI.

Ice Hockey

This year the St Hilda's Ice Hockey team combined with Queens and Columba A.  We have played four games and throughout these games I have noticed that our team is very supportive of each other considering most of us only met this year. We have made many new friends and I think it has been fun getting to watch my team work together and play. There are many different talents throughout the team that, when combined together, are amazing. I can’t believe there are only five games left. Interacting with these girls has been an experience I will never forget.

Netball

The winter sports season has well and truly started for 2023! This year, it is really exciting to see participation rates extremely high for netball with 16 teams playing on a Saturday and three Year 7 and 8 teams which play on a Thursday. The Senior A and B teams are into their second round of netball for 2023. Both teams topped their grades which allowed them to play for promotion relegation. The Senior A team played against Physed C and got the win, resulting in being promoted to Prem A. This is a huge achievement. Senior B played a very intense game against a Physed and came away with a draw which meant they stayed in the same grade. Our junior teams are doing incredibly well with seven teams winning all their games so far in the competition! Over the weekend the Otago Secondary Schools' Tournament took place where we had four teams competing. Awesome work to the Senior B team for taking out the tournament in the Senior B grade, Senior A and 9A coming second and 10A coming fourth. Good luck to all of the teams for the rest of the season, there is some awesome netball on display across the board from St Hilda’s.

Rugby

Although the cold has really started to push through, the rugby girls have put their heads down and got the job done every Wednesday night. St Hilda’s has three teams entered this year; the 1st XV, Year 10 and Year 9 team. All are doing really well. The 1st XV is currently holding second place on the table, having won four games and lost one. Last Wednesday our 1st XV had a mighty battle against the top of the table Otago Girls' High School. This was an awesome game to watch for the crowd of parents and teachers who came to support. The first half Otago Girls' had us for a couple moments, scoring two tries ahead of us. In the second half is where the magic happened. St Hilda’s were in it and getting aggressive on the ball. Our grit showed at the last few minutes of the game where it was 17-19 to Otago Girls' and St Hilda’s scored in the last few seconds of the game to give us an incredible win over Otago Girls' 21-19. The junior team is third in their grade, having won two games and lost three, and the Year 9 are top of their table having won five games and lost none. The 1st XV has an upcoming away game against Dunstan and potentially top four games in the future depending on how the season goes. The 1st XV has also just got a new uniform which is really exciting. A kit of rugby shorts, tops and socks makes us look really sharp out on the field. A big shout out to Mrs Wellington for making this happen, your support has been amazing. Every game we have supporters, sometimes including parents who have made six hour round trips to watch their daughters play. Big thanks to all the support we have received from both the school and supporters, it does not go unnoticed.

Swimming

The School Swim team, consisting of Malaika Ogbuehi, Lily Harvard, Lily McGrath, Charlotte Aburn, Evie Gilmour and Sophie Hutchens have had a very successful term. The whole team competed at the Otago Secondary Schools at the end of last month with all six swimmers achieving podium placings. As the Meet consisted mainly of competitive swimmers who all train with local clubs year round at a high level, this was a great result. There were a number of records broken at the Meet, including Charlotte who broke both the Female 14 & Under 200m Freestyle and the Female 14 & Under 400m Freestyle record for that Meet.

Bella, Evie and Lily also competed in the Div II National Swimming Champs earlier in the month, with all three also achieving podium places, which was a fantastic result.

Some great achievements in the pool by the school team!