Sports News 7 March

Mainland Volleyball Division 1 Champs - SMC Senior A. 

Congratulations to the team and coaching staff, what an awesome achievement. We wish you all the best at Canterbury Secondary School Championships this weekend and NZSS during Summer Tournament week.

The annual SMC Swimming Sports events for Junior, Middle and Senior schools were held last week here at the pool. It was great to see house spirit and everyone participating across the day in the various events. Good luck to all those swimmers who have qualified to compete at the Independent Zone and Canterbury Secondary School events in the coming weeks.

SMC hosted the Summer Quadrangular Tournament on 25 - 27 February. Students and staff attended from Rangi Ruru, Columba College, St Hilda’s Collegiate and Craighead Diocesan School and competed in Cricket, Touch, Volleyball and Tennis matches.

Cricket

It's been a busy start to the term with lots of cricket for all of our girls - a huge thank you to everyone for their contribution to all things that make up SMC Cricket. The energy and enthusiasm from our little junior school cricketers to our senior girls is infectious and it is such a privilege to see everyone in action. A huge thank you to our coaches and managers for their knowledge, expertise, and time that they give our teams. Rich, Abby, Scott, Katie, Mrs Surridge, Bindy, and our senior girls, you are all appreciated so much.

Representative Cricket

A shout out to Lily Young, Ciara Hartland and Pippa Bocock who have been selected to play in the Canterbury U19 Red v Black series currently underway over 3 weekends. Another shout out to Sophie Gibb and Lexie Boon who are part of the South Island U15 Invitational Team travelling to Dubai in April to play in the the R66t Dubai Cup - a huge opportunity. Go well girls and we look forward to following your progress.

Junior Cricket

Below are photos of our Junior School girls in action, learning from their cricketing big sisters! Thursday lunchtimes on the turf see lots of magic happening. Our Y5/6 girls have also had their first match against St Albans on our SMC Oval - it was a tough match but so much learning and fun was had.  Our next match will be played at St Albans. 

Senior Cricket

Our Saturday Div 2 and Div 3 teams are having a fabulous season with lots of great matches being played.  The girls' skills continue to progress and the results keep coming.  You can follow their matches each weekend on playHQ - https://play.nzc.nz/playhq-landing-page

SMC 1st XI Cricket

Our 1st XI girls have just completed a huge week of cricket competing in Summer Quad - playing against St Hildas Collegiate, Columba College, Craighead Diocesan and Rangi Ruru finishing a creditable 2nd.

Last Wednesday also saw our 1st XI girls play our annual fixture at the Willows - it is a real privilege for us to be invited to play at this prestigious cricket ground and the girls totally embraced the opportunity. SMC beat Otago Girls High School and retained the Satterthwaite/Bates Trophy with a 15 run win.  A very exciting match but a well deserved win to our girls.  Stand out performances from Lily Young with the bat (39) and Ciara Hartland (3-5) and Lexie Boon (3-10) at the bowling crease.  Overall a strong team effort with everyone contributing to pull off the win. Huge congratulations to you all girls. 

At the Willows we also capped 3 of our players - huge congratulations to Lily Young, Ciara Hartland and Maya Young.  Lesley Murdoch, President of NZ Cricket was at the Willows to present the girls with their caps. A very special moment.

This coming Thursday sees the final week of the Willows Weekly Competition where we have fielded two teams. At the end of matches this week Canterbury Cricket are putting on a BBQ for all teams and families so please come and join us at the Polo Grounds.

Venus/Gillette Cup is our next competition - SMC is entering 3 teams 1st XI, 2nd XI and 3rd XI. This competition is being played Tuesday 12, Wednesday 13 and Thursday 14 March at the Polo Grounds.Thank you everyone for the part you play in our programme.  So much to celebrate!

Canterbury Cricket - Indoor Cricket Trials

Canterbury Cricket are looking for girls to trial for the National Provincial teams in the July school holidays. This year the tournament is in Christchurch. They are looking at the possibility of having two teams.

If anybody is interested in trialing, please click on the link below and submit your details. https://forms.gle/9MzRAsUCXZXeK4p79

The trial will most likely not be until early May but we will also look to run a couple of sessions before the trial to get people used to the 8-a-side format that we use in our more competitive Indoor Cricket competitions.

Football

Congratulations to Trelise McEwan who has been selected in the Canterbury United Pride Women’s Futsal Squad to compete in the 2024 NZ Ford Futsal SuperLeague competition.

Korfball

Congratulations to Payton Edmundson who has been named as a member to represent New Zealand in the NZ U21 Korfball team who will compete in the Junior World Championships in Turkey in July. Awesome achievement Payton and we wish you all the best.

The SMC/CBHS and SMC/Christ College teams competed at the SISS Korfball tournament at Nga Puna Wai last weekend. The SMC/CBHS team made it through to the semi finals but unfortunately went down to a strong Hagley College team, finishing a credible 3rd overall. The SMC/Christ College are a relatively new team finishing an admirable 10th place in their grade, but showing good signs for the future. A big thanks to Nicole Lloyd and Tayla Hardy for supporting the teams. 

Rowing

The SMC Rowing squad attended the SISS Rowing Champs in Twizel last week. A strong performance by the whole team with some very good improvements from heats to finals. 22 crews across various age groups made A Finals. 

Results
Gold Medal U17 4+, U18 Pair, U15 8, U18 Novice 4

Silver Medal U18 Novice 8, U15 4, U18 8, U17 8

3rd Place Overall School

1st Girls School

1st Canterbury School 

This is a credit to the programme led by the coaching and management staff. All the best to everyone involved as you now prepare for Aon Maadi Regatta with your camp this week, including all the parents and supporters helping cook, drive, maintain, support and cheer on the girls!

Sailing

Congratulations and good luck to SMC students Amy Viles, Mila Blundell and Oak Galbraith who are in a combined Christchurch schools team preparing to compete in the NZ School Sailing Nationals in New Plymouth in the April school holidays.

All three students are busy with regatta’s coming up over the next month, Amy is sailing a 420 with her brother in a fleet regatta this weekend, Oak, Mila and Amy are going to Nelson for the Top of the South Teams and Mila is competing in the Optimist Nationals in Picton over the Easter weekend. All the best girls, great to see you involved in this sport.

Student Coaching

We were grateful to have Ben and Grace from Sport Canterbury come and deliver a Sport Coaching session to our student coaches who are coaching our SMC summer sport teams this term. The workshop covered topics around creating and modifying activities, effective communication and “what makes a great coach”. Coaches are now supported through the season with mentoring from SMC staff and coaches in their sports. 

Summer Quadrangular Exchange

The annual Summer Quadrangular Tournament was hosted last week here at SMC. SMC teams competing were Snr A Touch, Snr A Volleyball, Snr Tennis and Cricket 1st XI. Congratulations to all students who participated and to our coaches and staff who helped look after the teams. A special mention of appreciation to all the families who hosted billets throughout the exchange. SMC were the overall winners amongst the 5 schools - great work!

Results
1st St Margaret’s College

2nd Columba College

3rd St Hilda’s Collegiate School

4th Craighead Diocesan School

5th Rangi Ruru Girls’ School

Congratulations to the our Tennis and Volleyball teams for 1st placings, Cricket for 2nd place and Touch in 3rd= place. 

The following students were awarded Most Valuable Player Awards:

Touch Poppy McNeill

Volleyball Lulu Inglis

Tennis Lucy Young

Cricket Maya Young

Swimming

SMC student Olivia Vivian Yr 9 has had a busy couple of weeks in the pool. 

Recently Olivia competed in the Canterbury Junior Swimming Championships. Olivia competed in 11 events and won 11 gold medals and Canterbury titles as well as winning the Championship Backstroke and Championship Breastroke trophies. 

Last weekend Olivia travelled to Dunedin to compete in the South Island Long Course Swimming Championships. Competing as a 12 yr old in the 14 and under age group category Olivia won 1 silver and 4 bronze medals as well as swimming the fastest 50m freestyle time in her age group. Amazing work Olivia.

The annual SMC Swimming Sports event was held last week in our school pool. An awesome hot day spent poolside where House spirit was well and truly alive. Tt was great to see everyone enjoying themselves. 

Special mention to Olivia Vivian who broke SMC records in the U14 Medley and 50m Freestyle events and Millie Bell who broke 4 records in the U16 Individual Medley, 50m Freestyle, 50m Backstroke and 50m Butterfly events. 

Congratulations to all the students who have qualified to attend ISSA Zone swimming qualifiers and Canterbury Secondary School Swimming Champs coming up in April.