Sports News 16 May

Winter sport is in full swing across all winter sport codes with Wednesday sport competitions kicking off this week. 

The SMC annual Cross Country was held last week at Hagley Park with perfect Autumn weather conditions. It was great to see everyone getting involved and smiles on all the students. 

The SMC Summer Sport Assembly for Term 1 achievements took place last week. Multiple recipients received recognition for their results. The Red Rose ceremony for students achieving national recognition was special and rewarding for their hard work across all sports. Congratulations to all recipients. 

Please send any sporting news and achievements to sport@stmargarets.school.nz as we love to hear what our girls are getting up to in and out of school.

Basketball 

Congratulations to Evie Leeson, who has been named in the Junior Tall Ferns Basketball squad and will travel to China next month to compete in the FIBA U18 Asia Cup. A well-deserved achievement, Evie, after hours of hard work and commitment.

Canoe Sprint

Jessica Macdonald recently competed at the New Zealand Canoe Sprint Racing Nationals at Lake Karapiro in the U18 grade over the holidays. 

Jessica raced in heats, semis and finals, achieving 7 National medals over a range of races. Jessica won 5 golds, one silver and a bronze and proved herself to be a top end team boat after trialling for 2024 U18 World champs and winning all U18 women's team boat titles.  

Jessica was also a part of the top South Island team, and one paddler from each age group was selected to compete in a relay. Jessica and her team took home the title and the trophy.  Another very successful nationals for Jessica as she moves up into her 2nd year at U18 level. She has sights set on making the New Zealand team that will travel to Japan next year to race, and has goals to make the World Champs held in Portugal.

Canoe Polo 

Congratulations to Pippa Anderson, Zara Rose and Susanna Tully who recently competed in the South Island Secondary School Canoe Polo Champs last month. 

A special mention to Zara Rose, who was selected in the South Island Secondary School Canoe Polo Girls Tournament team. Zara has also represented Canterbury in the Women's league and has been competing against other regional teams. Zara was the highest goal scorer for her team and the 8th highest overall out of approximately 80 women with 7 goals at the tournament.

For anyone interested in the sport, Mainland Canoe Polo has Jellie Park booked over winter on Sunday's from 11-1pm for beginners, starting from the 19 May. Contact the Sport Office for more information. 

Cricket

During the recent term break, SMC staff and students Amanda Hardy, Sophie Gibb and Lexie Boon were members of the South Island U15 Girls’ Invitational Cricket team which travelled to the UAE to compete in the inaugural R66t Dubai Cup. They had the most incredible time on and off the cricket pitch. Having the opportunity to experience playing cricket in a different country, in very different conditions, and what it is like to travel and play sport.  They were able to immerse themselves in the local culture and experience what life in the UAE has to offer. It was brilliant. We are very proud of our results as we finished runner-up in the tournament to the Desert Vipers. As their name suggests they were accustomed to playing the game in the heat. We competed well and right to the end but came up short by 29 runs. Our final was played at the ICC Academy Ground in Dubai which was a fabulous experience in itself.  Our matches were livestreamed and our final even had commentators!

Our tour was amazing in every sense and was capped off with some extreme character building and resilience at the end as we navigated the challenges of the Dubai flooding to get home. The girls represented the South Island of New Zealand, their families, their schools and cricket associations, and themselves brilliantly. They were all fantastic ambassadors for girls' cricket here in New Zealand and the women’s game in general.

SMC Cross Country

The SMC Annual Cross Country was held on Wednesday, 8 May, on a warm autumn day across at Hagley Park. It was great to see House spirit alive across all the age groups and everyone participating in the event. Congratulations to everyone who competed and those who qualified to compete at the Canterbury Secondary Schools and Primary School events that are coming up.

Hockey

Congratulations to the following SMC students who were recently named in Canterbury Representative teams. 

U18A Neve Ballin, Sophie Booth, Zara Gamble, Bianca Skilton-Woods

U18B Li-Na Chapman, Margo Dalling, Poppy McNeill,

Miss Riley Chandler (Coach)

U18 Development Charlotte Giles, Elise Hampton, Ciara Hartland, Courtney Iliffe,
Rosa Turner, Lily Young
 

Netball

Last weekend, SMC hosted a Netball Skills session for Year 7 - 10 students. We were lucky to have specialist coaching from the Lincoln Netball Premier A team. Girls enjoyed learning new skills to take into their seasons. 

Netball season is in full swing with Wednesday netball starting this week. We hope everyone has settled into their teams and is enjoying the new indoor facility at Nga Puna Wai.

Road Race

This week a group of SMC runners competed in the School Sport Canterbury Road Race at Hagley Park.

Results

Year 9 - 3rd Overall team

Olivia Vivian - 9th

Florence Cottier-McCormick - 10th

Bridie - 13th

Under 16 - 2nd Overall team

Elsie Seeto - 2nd

Chloe Drinkwater - 5th 

Tilly O'Donnell - 11th

Senior - 2nd Overall team

Sam Lascelles - 4th

Izzy Bridge - 8th

Isabelle Harrison - 9th

Rugby

SMC is building off its successful Rugby 7’s programme entering a team into the CRFU 10 aside competition this term. The team is combined with some players from the St Bede's College IRP programme. Previously SMC has combined with RRGS and Marian, this is an exciting step forward to have largely SMC students involved. Weekly training is underway under the guidance of coach Richard Freeman and games started this week.

With a range of experience and year groups in the team the girls hope to build a solid foundation for both the future 7-a-side competition later this year and also to firmly establish a permanent rugby team here at St Margaret’s. Good luck team!

Student Coaching

School Sport Canterbury in conjunction with Sport Canterbury delivered a Student Coach Development Programme for Secondary School students who coach a winter sport last week. 

Those who attended were fortunate to have a number of excellent top-level regional and national coaches helping them develop their coaching skills in their chosen sports of hockey, netball and basketball.

We have a number of student coaches here at St Margaret's and this session was aimed to enhance their leadership and coaching capabilities so they can assist the younger students here at SMC. 

Swimming

Congratulations to SMC students Millie Bell and Olivia Vivian who competed in the Swimming New Zealand National Age Group Championships during the first week of the holidays.

Having just turned 13 in March Olivia was one of the youngest competitors. She had a huge programme over the meet and raced in over 20 races.  Olivia was individually entered in 10 events and made the finals in all 10 events, earning top 5 finishes, as well as swimming in 4 relays. Olivia won 2 silver and 2 bronze medals throughout the championships. In addition, her relay team broke the Canterbury Record in the 4 x 100m Medley Relay 15 yrs & under.

Millie achieved awesome results coming away with 4 silver and 3 bronze medals in her individual events. Millie also broke 4 North Canterbury records in the 50m and 100m Butterfly and the 50m and 100m freestyle events.