Busy sporting time at Mt Aspiring

These articles are compiled by the Otago Secondary Schools Sports Association (OSSSA) which is proudly sponsored by Perpetual Guardian.

Mount Aspiring College

Two of the five school sports days have been held at Mount Aspiring College. Congratulations to this year's swimming and athletics champions:

Swimming

13yrs: Jack Findlay & Emily Heath

14-15: Kobi Stevens & Jodi Chisholm

16 & over: Janus Staufenberg & Sophie Fairbairn

Athletics

Year 7: Thomas Benson & Estelle Gellatly

Year 8: Jack Timu & Scarlett Norman

U14: Tom Colborne & Abby Fisher

U16: Jack East & Mia Treadwell-Burke

Over-16: Adam Breen/ Janus Staufenberg (equal 1) & Laura MacCulloch

Pupils can now look forward to the mountain bike championships later this term, and the cross country and ski/ snowboard champs in term 3.

Many senior athletes competed at the Otago Secondary Schools champs, with all 13 competitors finishing in the top 3. Records were broken by Sammy Burke, Jack East and Zoe Smith. These pupils are now aiming to qualify for the South Island SS champs in April.

Over the weekend, the college had 40 competing at the Otago PS swimming, Otago Southland SS athletics and the South Island SS 12-hour adventure race. This week, teams are involved in NZSS futsal, SISS sailing, NZSS triathlon, NZSS white water kayaking, NZ Schools MTB champs and Maadi Cup at Karapiro.

Queen's High School

The Queen's softball team finished the secondary schools competition with an unbeaten record. This is the first time the softball team has achieved this.

The team was joint winner of the Division 2 competition with Otago Girls' High School. This is a fantastic achievement in a mixed grade. The team has been coached and managed by Richard Farquhar and Jodi Loffley for the past four years and through this leadership the team has developed into a strong unit.

Team member Heaven Samson-Loffley has recently been selected for the New Zealand International Softball Academy U-17 girls team but is unable to tour with it this year.

Winter sports are about to get under way and Queen's would like to acknowledge the support from the community who have volunteered to coach or manage teams. Fourteen pupils have also volunteered to coach at Queen's or contributing primary schools.

Many of the pupils have come through the sport leadership programmes that Queen's, Otago Secondary School Sports Association and Sport Otago run. The learning support pupils had a successful day at the Special Olympics Ribbon Day on February 23.

Tokomairiro High School

Earlier in the year, the Tokomairiro High Schools Athletics Day produced some awesome results. Nine records were set during the school athletics this year, which is phenomenal.

In the U12 boys Millar McElrea broke three records, in the triple jump (9m), and in the 100m and 200m sprints, recording 13.58sec and 29.41sec, to break records which have existed for 20 years. In the U12 girls, Aimee Edwards broke the 100m sprint record with 13.25sec and the 30-year-old 200m record, running 29.44sec.

Zoe McElrea broke the triple jump record with 7.08m and Renee Willis broke the shot put record, throwing 8.73m. Richard Scott broke the U16 triple jump record jumping 11.20m. In the U16 boys, Ethan Walker was impressive to watch and broke the javelin record with a throw of 46.82m.

Ethan went on to compete in the Otago Athletics Championships and broke the Otago record with a throw of 48.72m.

Huge congratulations to these pupils.

Kavanagh College

The Kavanagh College first XI cricket team had a very successful Interschool game against St Kevin's recently. Kavanagh made 334 for two, Nick Parata scoring a magnificent 186 not out. Anthony Mirfin also scored 85. In reply St Kevin's was all out for 104 and Jacob Hayde Bain took four for 23 off seven overs.

Erika Fairweather has been an extremely busy athlete recently, competing in surf life-saving and various swimming events. She has recently broken a NZ record in the 200m freestyle at the national champs in Wellington - a real star to watch out for.

The rowers have also been very busy and for some of the novices it was their first big outing at the South Island Rowing Championships, where they all performed very well.

The three senior rowers also achieved some pleasing results. Annie Blakey was seventh in the A final for girls' U17 single sculls, Sam Winton finished third in the boys' single sculls U18 B final, and Ambrose Lee was eighth in the A final of the U16 single sculls. Three rowers have travelled to the Maadi Cup regatta.

Otago Boys' High School

Congratulations to the tennis team, which finished third at the South Island Secondary Schools tournament, having had two tough games against Christ's College and Christchurch Boys' High School. The team played off for third and fourth, beating Timaru Boys' School 4-2.

In volleyball, the first tournament was the senior South Island event, where OBHS had three wins and three losses, finishing seventh. The following week it played the Otago Champs and went through undefeated to retain its Otago title. The team is in Palmerston North, at the National Secondary School tournament, where it was seeded 18th out of 32.

In athletics, congratulations to Anton Schroder, who won the U20 javelin with a throw of 57.74m, Liam Turner was third in the U20 800m and Cameron Miller was third in the U18 long jump with 6.59m at the NZ Track and Field Championships.

In the U20 4x400m relay Cameron won gold, teaming up with old boy Matthew Ogle.

Nathan Hill placed fifth in the U18 1500m with a time of 3.59.44.

For the sixth time in the last seven years, the 1st WI OBHS cricket team has qualified for the NZ finals, being played in December.

To qualify for the finals, OBHS played SBHS in the semifinals: OBHS 273 for eight (Jack Pryde 110), SBHS 115 (Ben Lockrose four for 10, Charlie Holt three for 35).

In the final, Otago Boys' met John McGlashan: OBHS 271/7 (Max Chu 121, Tim Horton 55), John McGlashan 147 (Ben Lockrose four for 12, Josh Kellett two for 21 , Thomas Harding two for 23).

During summer tournament week the school had many sports trips away, including touch, water polo, rowing, volleyball, futsal, sailing and athletics.

Blue Mountain College

On the February 19, Blue Mountain College had five senior pupils competing in the Otago-Southland Secondary School Waterski Championships.

Year 12 pupil Tom Hancox won the U16 championship section with 81.5 points and Natalie Candry won the U16 novice section with 36.5 points.

The third team member, Jack Johnston, took fourth place with 38.5 points. Overall, Blue Mountain College scored 162.5 points and finished second out of nine teams.

The senior girls NZCT Cricket team beat Gore High School and St Peter's in round one of this competition on February 22. The semifinal was played in Dunedin against Otago Girls' High School on March 1. Otago Girls' scored 78 for five off its 20 overs.

Blue Mountain year 10 pupil Paige McIvor took two wickets for 16 runs off five overs and also a great catch. Blue Mountain College reached 79 runs for just three wickets off 11 overs. Georgia Thomson (25) and Taylah Dawson-Tait (21 not out) batted well together, running hard between the wickets and creating a lot of runs for each other.

Blue Mountain met the strong St Hilda's team in the final on March 23 and finished runner-up.

Blue Mountain College had 18 pupils at the Otago Athletics at the Caledonian on March 10. Four pupils took first places: year 9 pupil Caleb Stuart threw an awesome 36.38m to secure the U14 boys javelin, Mikairi Beauchamp-Moore won the U15 girls javelin, year 12 pupils Hollie Kelly won the senior girls javelin and Rachael Kummer won the senior girls discus.

Gemma Stark was third in the U14 shot put, Laura Weller was second in U15 high jump, long jump and triple jump, Sarah Muldoon was second in the shot put and Georgia Thomson gained third place in the 3000m.

Fifteen Blue Mountain College pupils qualified in the top eight and all will proceed on to the Otago-Southland athletics in Invercargill.

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