Despite ongoing disruptions with Covid19, UHC's sports programme has charged ahead - led by multiple successes with our Volleyball teams. Sports Activator Chris Campbell walks us through how things played out.

Volleyball

It was a great season for Upper Hutt College Volleyball. The sport has been extremely popular in the last couple of years and 2022 saw the culmination of that in the success of so many of our teams. 

Here is how it shaped up:

• Junior Girls 1 - Champions of Division 1
• Junior Girls 2 - Champions of Division 4 
• Senior Girls 1 - Runners up in Division 1 
• Senior Girls 2 - Runners up in Division 2 
• Senior Boys A - Champions of Division 1

The highlight in the boys grades was our Senior Boys A team winning Division 1.

The good news doesn't stop there. For the first time in recent history we sent our Senior Boys and Senior Girls teams to the Regional Tournament held in Porirua. 

The Senior Girls were placed in the group of death, locking horns with the tournament's big hitters. Our girls acquitted themselves well and were competitive in all the games that they played, however, only mustered the one win against Kapiti College. This is still a great achievement and a strong indication of how far the game has come at our school. 

It was a slightly different story for our Senior Boys who had a point to prove after narrowly missing out on qualification for Regionals in 2021. Their campaign got off to a flying start, beating heavily favoured Wellington College and Tawa College on day one. 

St Pats Town were up next on day two but unfortunately we came up short in a close five-setter, but it was good enough for us to top our group and meet Naenae College in the quarter final (a team our boys are familiar with after beating them to win the local weekly competition). History has a way of repeating itself and after playing our best volleyball to date and winning the game 3-1 we were semi finals bound against number 1 seeds St Bernard's College. 

The game went the way of the form book and unfortunately our boys were outgunned and lost the game 0-3. It was a similar story in the Bronze medal match when we were out played by previous winners St Pats Silverstream. 

It was an incredibly long week for the players, coaches and parents (watching on the livestream) and we thank you for all your effort. Congratulations to Josh Tia and Ezekiel Ross for their selection in the Tournament Team and to Phoenix Allen, PJ Sovala, Josh Tia and Oliana Tia who were all selected in Wellington Representative teams.

Lawn Bowls

It was a successful year for our lawn bowlers who enjoy a roll up on a Thursday afternoon, in the Silverstream sun. 

At the time of writing this article our top Bowls team of Hayley Burgess Philip and Emma Bryant are currently competing for the Wellington Regional Championship at the home of Wellington Bowls, the Naenae Bowling Club. I hope to be reporting news of a victory next term, either way this is a great achievement ladies!

Futsal

It was a case of close but no cigar for our nine Futsal teams that compete in the Hutt Valley competition at the Walter Nash Stadium.

Our Junior Boys Silver, Senior A boys and Senior A girls were all in their respective finals but unfortunately all came up short in the big dance. It is great to have so many UHC students playing the sport and every team represented our school with distinction throughout the season. 

Our teams will be hoping to swap their silver medals for gold ones when the competition resumes in Term 4. 

A huge thanks to all of the parent managers and coaches for enabling our students to play week in week out.