Sports News Term 3, Week 6

SMC Badminton Season 2024: A Smash Hit! 🏸

Badminton at SMC in 2024 has hit the floor running with an incredible season full of energy, commitment, and fantastic results from all 12 teams. Our players have shown fantastic commitment and dedication each week, and most importantly, they've had a lot of fun while making strong progress on the court and making more friendship connections.

We’re excited to celebrate some standout achievements this season. Our Senior A2  and Senior A3 teams took home first place in their respective grades, while our Senior A team performed well to finish 4th. A special shout-out to our Senior A team, who recently competed in Winter Quad and placed second—a fantastic result that sets us up nicely as we head to the NZSS in Wellington during tournament week.

The enthusiasm and spirit at after-school training have been awesome, with our players bringing energy and focus to every session. The communication and organisation around each week's games have been so good, and we owe a big thank you to our team captains for leading by example.

A huge thank you also goes out to our fabulous staff supervisors—Mrs. Jack, Mrs Coakley, Ms Crawford, Miss Stocks, Ms Gray, Mrs Mitchell, Mrs B and Ms Hardy—who have been unwavering in their support and have ensured everything runs smoothly, from providing transport to supporting from the sidelines at matches.  A special mention to Alicia in the Sports Office for her work coordinating draws and ordering taxis as needed each week— we appreciate you all.

As we look back on a fantastic season and forward to the challenges ahead, we couldn’t be prouder of the way our girls have represented SMC on the badminton court. Here’s to an even bigger and better 2025 season!

Go SMC Badminton! 
Ms. Hardy & Lancy

Football

This year, we had enough students to run two football teams, most of which were in years 9 and 10. Whilst this means we will go from strength to strength in the coming years, it did mean that we often competed against mainly senior students in the league games and at the Quad tournament. The girls, led by their Head of Football, Trelise McEwan, showed great determination and tenacity in their play and should be proud of all they have achieved this year. The highlight for the first team was taking the eventual league winners to a penalty shoot-out in the semi-final.

The emphasis for Football at SMC is always on enjoyment and skills development, played in a spirit of good sportswomanship. All three managers and coaches could not be prouder of our girls. They have always shown great spirit, respect for other players and officials, and, above all, enjoyment. We cannot wait to see where this young squad takes us in the future.

Keith McDonnell, Nick Ryan, Brandon Wilson

We are very proud of Trelise McEwan (Y12), who has just been selected in the Canterbury Pride Football Youth Squad for the 2024 Youth National League season. 

Youth National League is Aotearoa New Zealand’s top youth domestic Football competition. The girls' Youth National League runs from September to November and consists of four teams from NRFL clubs and four federation sides. There are seven rounds in which every team plays each other once. The team at the top of the table is then crowned the champion. We wish you all the best for your upcoming competition season, Trelise!

Yr 9-13 HOCKEY

This season, we had over one hundred students playing Hockey from Yrs 9-13, making up seven teams. We had an SMC team represented in each of the finals of the top four divisions, which is an outstanding effort. Two of these teams won their Championship game—the Red team (Div 2) beat CGHS 3rd XI with an exciting penalty shootout, while the Green team (Div 3) had a convincing 3-0 win over Cashmere 2nd XI. 

The 2nd XI team lost 1-2 in their final against CGHS 2nd XI, putting up a great fight until the final whistle. They pulled the goalie off in the final 8 minutes to add another striker, but they could not quite convert. The 2nd XI team will be travelling to Dunedin next week to compete at the 2nd XI National Tournament, the Chris Arthur Cup. They will be hoping to change this scoreline if we encounter CGHS in crossover pool play at the tournament.  

The White and Blue teams competed well throughout the season, finishing mid-table in divisions 2 and 3, respectively. The silver team made excellent progress in division 4, climbing the table to finish 5th.

The 1st XI team showcased an excellent game against Rangi Ruru 1st XI in their final on Friday night in front of a huge crowd of positive supporters at Nga Puna Wai. It was a super close game throughout, with Rangi Ruru winning 2-1. 

It was a wonderful celebration for our Year 13 players (x9) to be acknowledged in front of their home crowd.  The 1st XI head to Hamilton next week to compete at the Federation Cup.

Captains Amelia Frew and Poppy McNeill leaving the turf.

Yr 1 - 8 HOCKEY

St Margaret's Years 1 - 8 hockey has wrapped up another exciting season that brought challenges and achievements. While the results didn’t always go in our favour, the players never lost their spirit, continuing to have fun and be great teammates. Each player's progress is noticeable, and the development of the teams throughout the season has been remarkable. Every team’s dedication to training and willingness to learn was evident in every game, displaying their growth and commitment.

A special tribute goes to our incredible student coaches, whose passion, knowledge, and commitment significantly impacted all teams. Their guidance and encouragement have been invaluable, fostering a positive environment where our players could grow both on and off the turf.

Huntley Exchange

Huntley School, from Marton in the North Island, played our Year 8A netball team in their biennial trip to the South Island. It was a beautiful day, and many of their parents travelled down to watch the game. Huntley managed to take out the close encounter before heading to Waihi School to finish their tour.

Well done to all the girls who participated in this exchange.

Snr A Netball - SuperNet Champions 2024

Our SMC A team has taken out the Canterbury title for the fourth year in succession. St Andrew’s College and St Margaret’s College have both featured regularly in recent years, so it was no surprise that the game was closely contested.

In a tense encounter, SMC held its composure and pulled away in the final quarter to secure a five-goal win. 

SMC has a proud history in Supernet, having secured the trophy ten times over the last 13 years.

The team is looking forward to being on their home courts next week to compete at the South Island Secondary Schools tournament, attracting 80 Senior A teams from throughout the South Island. The top five teams from this event qualify to attend the New Zealand Secondary Schools tournament, also held in Christchurch from 8-11 October.

Back Row: Molly Ginnever, Evie Leeson, Belize McQuarrie, Charlotte Coughlan, Julia Mitchell, Nevaeh Dunn
Front Row: Lucy Farrell, Lulu Inglis, Annie Francis, Siahn Nilsen

Netball Umpiring

Netball is one of many sports that would not be possible without umpires! We are fortunate to have several students at SMC who volunteer their time to assist with umpiring. Some of our students have been working towards achieving umpiring qualifications through the Christchurch Netball Centre and have received the following awards in 2024.

Whistler awards:

Bronze and Silver - Isabella Moore, Laura Pinney, Sophia Prince

Platinum - Isabella McCully, Bronny O’Sullivan, Sophie Leafburg

Centre Award - Maddie Coughlan, Jasmine Ginnever

Congratulations, girls - we appreciate all that you do for netball. Keep up the excellent work.

Rugby

A huge congratulations to Indy Gibson, who has been named to the Canterbury Under 18’s Girls Team Black. All the best for the campaign, Indy.

Skiing

Independent Schools Ski Championships - Porters Ski Field, Tuesday 20 August

It was a cold but bluebird day up at Porter's for our annual Independent Schools Ski Racing. The Year 7/8 team—Henrietta Williamson, Clementine Forbes, Arabella Thomas, and Holly Brooks—and the Year 4/5 team—Iris Xiao and Charlotte Gong—all had a great day out. For many of these girls, it was their first time racing.

All the girls ‘took to the snow’ with perseverance and determination to ski their fastest between the flags. Huge congratulations to our Year 7/8 team, which came second in the Year 7/8 Girls division, and a big shout out to Henrietta Williamson, who recorded the fastest Year 7/8 girls' time of 33.11 seconds and was the second fastest girl overall in the competition.

Swimming 

Both Millie Bell and Olivia Vivian have had a terrific week away competing in the Swimming NZ Short Course Championships, which were held at the Sir Owen G. Glenn Aquatic Centre in Auckland.

Millie won 4 medals in 16yr girls - 4 bronze medals in 50 Fly, 100 Fly, 50 Free and 100 Free.

Olivia won 5 medals in 13 yr girls - 2 silver medals in 100 Breast and 200 Breast and three bronze medals in 50 Breast, 200 Medley and 800 Free.

Well done, girls, excellent results!

Table Tennis

This year, we entered a team into Canterbury Secondary School’s weekly Table Tennis competition. The team entered Open Division 2 and finished a very credible 4th after some close competition. The majority of this team is in Year 9, and we look forward to seeing how they go in the future. Hopefully, the success of this team will lead to us being able to enter more teams into this competition and other tournaments.

A member of this team, Tracey Hsia, recently competed on the Table Tennis Australia tour in Brisbane, finishing with a bronze medal in the U17 Girls’ Singles event.

It's great to see you taking your A-game to Australia and competing well over there!

Winter Exchange

It has been a busy time for our Year 7 and 8 sports teams recently. Our Year 7 and 8 Netball and Hockey teams participated in the Independent Schools Winter Sports Festival, with teams from St Andrew’s College, Waihi, Selwyn House, Medbury and Cathedral Grammar all taking part.

SMC hosted the netball games while the hockey teams headed to St Andrew’s College for their competition.

Our teams showed great skill and sportsmanship over the two-day festival, and playing several games in a tournament situation was beneficial for their development and team spirit.