Director of Sport, Chris Campbell, runs us through some fantastic accomplishments by our students. These successes include winning a CSW shooting award, national basketball success, national football representation and international football experience.
College Sport Wellington Sports Person of the Year Awards
On the evening of Sunday the 5th of November, College Sport Wellington held their annual awards night at the Te Rauparaha Arena, in Porirua. This is the showpiece event in the College Sport calendar and it celebrates the success of the amazing athletes we have in the Wellington Region.
Upper Hutt College had three finalists - Lily Candy (Cycling/BMX), Finn Darrall (Shooting) and Emma Bryan (Lawn Bowls).
It was an extremely entertaining night MC'd by the voice of Wellington sport, Jason Pine. It was also great to hear the insights from guest speaker ex-All Black Victor Vito.
The icing on the cake however, was Finn Darrall winning the award for the best male shooter in Wellington. This included his success in small and fullbore shooting. Well done to all of our finalists.
Sports Stars Being Worthy
This is the first of what will be a termly addition to the Sports section of the newsletter. Each term we will showcase some of the exceptional sporting individuals that we have at UHC.
The inaugural student is Te Omeka Sua. At just Year 10, Te Omeka has proven himself to be one of the most valuable players in the Senior A basketball team. He has a natural gift to play the game but this coupled with his desire and ability to put in hard work sets him apart, as one to watch!
Te Omeka is a member of the Hutt Valley U15 team who in May went undefeated at the Regional Championships. Later in July they attended the AON National Basketball Tournament in Auckland and finished 3rd in the country.
Te Omeka is an example that hard work - pays off! Keep up the great work Te Omeka and we look forward to seeing you take the court again for UHC next year!
Richie Smyrnis - Ready To Take On Oceania's Best
A massive congratulations to Richie Smyrnis for his selection in the New Zealand Secondary Schools U16 "South" Football team that will be playing against some of Oceania's best schoolboy footballers in January next year.
The "South" team consists of boys from schools south of Hamilton. This is a massive catchment area as it encompasses the best players from areas like New Plymouth, Hawkes Bay, Wellington and the entire South Island!!!!
At the three day tournament in Auckland (that doubles as a final trial of the New Zealand Secondary Schools team) Richie will come up against the NZSS "North '' team, NZ Maori and Australia B.
All the best Richie and everyone at UHC is incredibly proud of your achievement!
Upper Hutt Footballers Get A Taste Of Chile
In the Term 3 holidays Flynn Mihajevich Groves and Hamish Sheterline took their footballing prowess to Chile as part of the Pedro Garcias Football Academy team.
This was a great chance to experience travelling internationally, experiencing another culture and most importantly, playing a different brand of football against some of South America's best.
I caught up with them both and here is what they had to say about their trip:
What was the best football memory that you will take away from the trip?
Hamish - "Keeping a clean sheet in a 2-0 against one of the professional academy teams over there."
Flynn - "Scoring my first goal of the tour in one of the big games, it felt pretty good."
What was one of your best memories off the football pitch?
Hamish - "I really enjoyed visiting the schools, even though we couldn't understand them it was really cool to meet all the kids there, we had a translator and they asked us heaps of questions."
Flynn - "We went to watch some of the professional teams play, they play the game very differently over there."
Funniest moments of the tour?
Hamish - "When ordering at Subway the translator told one of the boys to say "I love you" in spanish instead of asking for cheese, that was pretty funny and everyone was laughing at us"
Flynn - "Definitely the Subway prank."
What have you learnt about the whole experience?
Hamish - "The different ways that football can be played, I took a lot away from Pedro, our coach, tactically."
Flynn - "Definitely to be grateful that we live in New Zealand, It was lovely but there was a lot of poverty."
How will you implement what you have learned now you are back in New Zealand?
Hamish - "Improve my goalkeeping technique."
Flynn - "Be more confident on the ball and to be stronger."
Any interesting purchases made on tour?
Hamish - "Spanish Pokemon cards were the randomest thing I bought but I also got some football shirts too."
Flynn - "I bought heaps of football shirts and some hand painted art work."