After a tough season for Winter Sport, Shirley Intermediate entered the Badminton Winter Tournament for the 4th year running. Could they place in the top 4 again?

This past week, Shirley Intermediate entered the CAIMS (Canterbury Association Intermediate Schools) Winter Tournament for Badminton. A sport that we have excelled at in past seasons, we had a rough season with many of the Canterbury and New Zealand representatives in our pool.

For the tournament, we were granted entry for four teams, and made the most with selecting the best of the best, and bringing in fringe players who had missed out on making the school team for experience and exposure.

Kowsar and Mahdia summed it up nicely on the first day "Why is everyone so nice at badminton?" The atmosphere was very relaxed, Jo from Canterbury Badminton added some coaching and scoring tuition, and our Valkyries side made good friends with a very evenly matched Casebrook Side.

The field of opposition had numerous New Zealand and Canterbury representatives on show and very quickly everyone knew who the finalist teams would be with Rangi Ruru and Cobham Red sporting full teams of high quality players.

The true battle was could Shirley Intermediate grab a top six place from teams sporting only one representative rather than 3. Numerous of our players were not well, with a bout of sickness ravaging the teams before we even started and the SOS call went out to fill up some spaces.

The Valkyries sported three brand new players to the sport, but Mya, Mahdia and Koswar, you played with good demeanor when you faced the Canterbury Champs, South Island Champs and members of the Canterbury Academy of badminton in three consecutive games!

The Shieldmaidens: Eva, Kate and Amisha, started off well, but a run of calls went the other way which demoted them to the plate finals. They at least had the bragging rights of not losing to any of the other Shirley Intermediate sides. With Eva and Kate being only Year 7, they have another year to step up again for the upcoming 2025 Badminton season.

The Rangers, Annabella, TJ, and Soren battling illness from the weekend before struggled to get going, but with Liam from Room 1 jumping in last minute to cover for Soren, they showed that they have some potential for next year to go further.

Finally the Vikings who started with three players but dropped to two for the final day with Luca falling to the bug, they had a tough run to the end playing Cobham Intermediates A, B and C sides. Mitchell and Ollie had to play twelve consecutive matches against NZ and Canterbury representatives and played admirably. A highlight was Ollie putting 7 points on a New Zealand player which was more than most teams combined scored.

They ended up in the third vs fourth play off where the game ended as a 3-3 all draw after being 3-1 down. With the official count back the scores were 71-72, which meant they took third place by a singular point! Fantastic result, and understandably their excitement lifted their weery bodies.

A big thank you to everyone who helped our teams play in the Winter Season and to the Winter Tournament - Eva's parents for the extra coaching and lifts to the games; Audra ferrying the students most weeks to the game all while manning the front desk at school; my mum who assisted with transport (and ice cream) for a few weeks, Peter from the Zhu Badminton Centre for hosting and supplying our school with nets to use, Jo from Badminton Canterbury for some coaching tips on the day and of course all the students who came each week to help train with the teams to get them to where they ended up.

I look forward to the 2025 season and hopefully the 2025 Koru Games to reenact our 2022 season where all our teams made the finals.