Sports News Term 3, Week 2

Basketball

During the recent school holidays, three talented students from St. Margaret's showcased their basketball prowess at the National Tournaments. Congratulations to Taylah Davis, Taylah Pou, and Lucie Davis for their outstanding performances and dedication to the sport.

Taylah Davis played for the Canterbury U16 A team, which placed 5th, with Alicia Davis as the team manager, while Taylah Pou competed in the Canterbury U16 B team, finishing 12th. Lucie Davis represented the Canterbury U18 A team, achieving an impressive 3rd place. Remarkably, all three girls are bottom age, which means they have the exciting potential to represent St. Margaret's in these teams at nationals again next year.

We are incredibly proud of their achievements and look forward to seeing them continue to excel both on and off the court. Well done, girls, and shine on!

Evie Lesson is doing what she loves!

Evie was selected for the U128 Junior Tall Ferns that travelled to Shenzhen, China, to compete in the FIBA U18 Women’s Asia Cup.

“The experience of playing against people from around the world was amazing. All the games were very physical, fast, and intense compared to what I was used to. A highlight of the games was playing China's 7'3ft Ziyu Zhang; she was impossible to mark, but saying you've played someone with that kind of height is not something you hear every day.”

Cricket

Congratulations to the following girls from SMC who represented Canterbury in the National Indoor Cricket Championship last week.

Lexie Boon Y10 - Canterbury U18 - her team placed 3rd

Jess Gearry Y9 - Canterbury U17B

Eva Grace Y9 (injured so didn't play) - Canterbury U17B

Also a big shout out to the girls that have been selected into the Canterbury Metro Development Squad - Pippa Bocock, Lexie Boon and Sophie Gibb. This Development Squad is designed to cater to identified players who may have been a part of Metro representative teams and have the potential to play at a higher level in the future.  

Caira Hartland has also been selected into the Canterbury Cricket Girls' Academy for the upcoming season—only 12 girls were selected for this, so it is a great achievement.

Cross Country

SMC’s Charlotte Robertson successfully placed 1st in the Year 6 Girls, Canterbury Primary Schools' Cross Country held at Nga Puna Wai in June.

Hockey

St Margaret’s girls were well represented at the National Hockey Championships over the holidays.

Canterbury U18A Women - 6th place in Vantage National U18 Hockey Championship tournament. 

Zara Gamble

Sophie Booth

Bianca Skilton-Woods

Neve Ballin

Phoebe Spear (Old girl)

Canterbury U18B Women - 5th place Vantage National U18 Hockey Championship tournament (Coached by Riley Chandler).

Li-Na Chapman

Lily Young

Margo Dalling

Poppy McNeill

Canterbury U18 Development Women - 20th place Vantage National U18 Hockey Championship tournament (Mila Ballin old girl involved in the coaching team).

Charlotte Giles

Ciara Hartland

Courtney Iliffe (Unavailable for tournament week)

Elise Hampton

Rosa Turner

Lily Ballin

Netball

An outstanding result at the SISS Junior Netball Tournament in the holidays with 

St Margaret’s College Y9 and Y10 teams both finished first. 

Year 9 girls: Alex Campbell, Gretel Dampier-Crossley, Taylah Davis, Sophie Forward, Eva Grace, Isabella McCully, Grace Millar, Portia O’Malley, Tayla Pou and Olivia Vivian.

Year 10 girls: Sydney Alva, Milla Cox, Sammy Donovan, Grace Evans, Sophie Gibb, Jasmine Ginnever, Alys Hatton, Harlow McIntosh, Sophie Ockwell and Elsie Seeto.

A big shout-out to all the organisers and supporters of this event; it was a great team effort that allowed the girls to achieve their best. 

SMC had five current and one Year 13 2023 players competing in the Christchurch U18A team at the NZ U18 Netball Nationals in Dunedin. These girls finished in 10th place. Well done to Charlotte Coughlan, Nevaeh Dunn, Evie Leeson, Annie Francis, Siahn Nilsen and Old Girl Milly Farrell.

As we all know, we can’t play netball without umpires! Congratulations to our SMC Netball umpires, Jasmine Ginnever and Hannah Millar, who have just won their Centre Theory Awards.  

Also, a big thank you to the girls who umpire week after week and support all our teams' play!

Swimming

SMC girls did themselves proud at the NZ Secondary Swimming Championships (25 - 28 July).

St Margarets was featured on the podium six times, which was excellent for our small but mighty team of two.

Millie Bell - 16yr old girls - Gold in 50 Free, Gold in 100 Free and Bronze in 50 Fly

Olivia Vivian - 13yr old girls - Silver in 100 Breast, Silver in 200 Breast and Bronze in 200 Medley

It was a huge few days of racing and set the girls up nicely for the upcoming NZ Short Course Championships in August.

Table Tennis

Jennifer Hsia and Tracey Hsia competed in the Otago Open Table Tennis Tournament over the weekend.

Tracey has won the Open Women's Singles, Open Mixed Doubles, U15 Girls Singles, U15 Mixed Doubles and U19 Girls Doubles. Jennifer won the U19 Girls Doubles, 2nd U19 Girls Singles and 2nd in the U21 Girls Singles. 

Great results, girls - well done!

Water Polo

An exciting holiday in the pool for our Water Polo girls.

Zoe Crosbie, Brooke Mullinger, and Charlotte Coughlan were on the Canterbury U18 team, which placed 5th at the U18 Nationals.

Charlotte also played on the U21 Canterbury team, which placed 2nd at Nationals. Old girl and SMC Senior A Water Polo Coach Georgia Reed was on this team with Charlotte. 

Charlotte’s dedication and hard work have paid off. She has been named a non-travelling reserve for the U18 New Zealand Team.