These articles are compiled by the Otago Secondary Schools Sports Association which is proudly sponsored by Perpetual Guardian.
South Otago High School
The year is half over and therefore the winter sports season is almost half over too. Twenty-four teams are competing across five codes in competitions in Dunedin and Balclutha.
SOHS thoroughly enjoyed having an involvement in the Co-Ed Cup tournament last week. It entered two teams, badminton and girls junior basketball - sports that do not have a competition in Balclutha.
The two traditional winter sporting and cultural interchanges have been held. Firstly, Taieri College hosted the school in Mosgiel and 124 students headed north to compete in rugby, football, netball, basketball and theatresports. The highlight was the record 104-0 win by the first XV.
Last week the biggest interchange of the year was held with Gore High School. This involved 300 students in Gore and Balclutha. Rugby, netball, hockey, football, basketball, theatresports and claybird shooting teams took part. The overall result was a win to SOHS, and it was exciting to see claybird shooting back after an absence of several years.
Bayfield High School
Bayfield High School students have continued to impress in recent sporting events.
Bayfield head girl Jade Fielding finished second in the national aerobics competition, unluckily missing out on qualifying for the world championships. Jade will compete in the New Zealand secondary school gymsports championships at the end of July.
Senior and junior students travelled to Timaru to compete in other annual sports exchange with Mountain View College. Since its inception in 2012, Bayfield had not once had its name engraved on the Sports Exchange Cup. However, Bayfield won the boys and girls senior and junior basketball, all netball, senior, mixed and junior boys football, singles and doubles table tennis, debating and drew the chess. Bayfield now proudly has its name engraved on the cup.
During the recent Co-Ed Cup, Bayfield came third overall, winning senior boys basketball. The girls football team won all its round- robin games, and but came second to Kavanagh College girls after a hard-fought 1-0 loss in the final.
Bayfield senior and junior A netball teams competed in the OSS netball tournament over the second weekend of June. Both teams have shown vast improvements since the start of the season and continue to improve and grow over the Saturday competition. Mya Miller has ben selected in the Dunedin under-14 netball squad for 2016.
Queen's High School
Queen's Special Olympics football team finished second against teams from throughout Otago at a competition at the Edgar Centre.
Heaven Samson-Loffley is in Sydney with the under-17 Southern Pride softball team. This trip will be followed up by another in September when Heaven plays for the under-17 International Softball Academy team in Australia.
It demands both mental and physical toughness to participate in the winter rowing programme. Katie Atkinson and Hayley Kettings are demonstrating these traits as they train hard both on the harbour and in the gym.
Another group training with purpose are the two hip hop crews who want to retain their top placing at regionals next month. To compete in the NZCAF nationals, they must place in the top four.
Queen's has 13 students helping various primary or intermediate schools with coaching and officiating, as well as four senior students who umpire at the netball courts every Saturday. This service to the community is helping them develop a range of skills which they can adapt to life in school and beyond.
Queen's has one student who has opted for target shooting as her sport. India Barrett trains with the King's team and recently competed well at Waldronville in the intercollegiate championships.
Kavanagh College
As term two draws to a close, winter sport is well entrenched at Kavanagh College. Winter sport in most schools relies heavily on volunteers, parents, staff and community members. In some cases, people who have no affiliation to the school are keen to help out in coaching and managing a sports team. A huge amount of time and resource goes into getting teams out on the park and court each week and Kavanagh College would like to publicly thank all its volunteers who help make sport happen.
The badminton team beat OBHS 5-1 in the final of the secondary school competition recently. This is a fantastic result for the college and for the manager, Dave Dougherty, who has been involved for a very long time. The team was made up of Ferdinand Kolimlim, Marvin Haung, Braden Mansfield and Josh Forrester.
The annual co-ed tournament was held recently in Dunedin and the school managed to come out on top of the overall standings. Kavanagh won the boys and girls football, the junior girls basketball, the senior girls basketball and the boys hockey.
Columba College
Christine Weirda has been selected in the New Zealand schools diving team to compete in Australia. Christine's selection brings the total present student tally of New Zealand representatives to 12.
At a recent tournament, the senior A netball team was second, as was 10A, while 9A was third. Several girls have made the under-14 and under-15 Dunedin representative squads, with final teams to be announced soon.
The year 9 and 10 teams are looking forward to the junior tournament in Christchurch during the July holidays.
Year 9 runner Zoe McCane finished third in the recent Otago cross-country. Zoe was joined by Cierra Reid and Jordan Summers to gain a second placing in the under-14 team event. Due to school exams, there were no senior runners.
The first XV rugby team gained a place in the final recently. Rugby is a new sport in the school and, under the guidance of teacher Josh Walden, the girls have improved rapidly and beat South Otago in the semi to progress to the final. Although the girls lost the Otago schools final 25-15 to St Hilda's, they gave their all. The score was tied 10-10 at halftime. Players to stand out were Meg Breen, Mia Joseph and Niamh Paterson. The future is promising as the majority of the team are in years 9 and 10.
The No1 badminton team won the school final in the top grade against St Hilda's 1. Team members were Rileigh Fields (captain), Kelly Hoyt, Khaleeda Jaafar, Joelle Gatenby and Peyton Fields
Otago Boys' High School
Josh Kellett is the top badminton player at Otago Boys High School. Over the last month, Josh has played in the under-17 Otago championships in which he won the boys doubles with longtime partner Caleb Young, of Southland. The following weekend he travelled to Southland for its under-17 tournament and won the doubles again. This time he also claimed the singles title. Last weekend he went back to Southland to play the South Island under-19 tournament and won the mixed doubles with Emily Perry, of St Hilda's Collegiate.
His next outing will be when he represents the Otago under-17 team, along with Sam Hewson, at the national teams event in Palmerston North during the first week of the school holidays.
The OBHS 1st XV won the Trust Bank Cup for South Island 1st XV supremacy.
OBHS beat Southland Boys' High School 35-12 to win the trophy back. The team then defended the cup against Christ's College, which is winning the University of Canterbury championship in Christchurch, beating it soundly 41-0.
The following week the team had an away interschool against Timaru Boys' High School and won 31-6.
Tokomairiro High School
The A netball team travelled to Dunedin to compete in the OSS championships. In pool play, Tokomairiro won games against Bayfield, Logan Park and Roxburgh and drew with Queen's. The girls played some great netball against Kaikorai Valley College in the semi, winning 25-8. In the B grade final against Roxburgh Area School, Tokomairiro put together a quality game and never looked like wavering. Off to an early lead, it kept the momentum going and won 23-16. This was a great effort, as the last time it held this title was in 2008. The A netball team has been growing in confidence throughout this season and recently was promoted to senior 2 grade in the South Otago competition. This was an awesome effort for this young team. The members of the team were Nikki Hall (captain), Maria Scott, Nadia Lloyd, Emma Paul, Abbey Frost, Madison Hoera, Tayla Frost, Mackenzie Frost and Jorjah Mason-Waru.
Mount Aspiring College
Winter sports are in full swing in Wanaka, with most school teams already selected for tournament week in August. Two basketball teams took part in the Central Otago secondary school tournament in Queenstown last week. Both teams played well and enjoyed their first chances to play against other school teams. The senior boys finished second and the junior mixed team came third.
In cross-country, the school came away with four wins from eight games at the OSS champs. Janus Staufenberg and Sammy Burke won senior titles, while Gregor Findlay won the under-under-16 boys and Fiona Murray the under-15 girls. The school fielded its largest team of three at the New Zealand champs a few weeks later. Sammy Burke impressed, narrowly missing a podium place in finishing fourth in the under-19 category.
Year 13 student Mikayla Harvey has been selected to represent New Zealand at the world cycling champs in Doha this October. This follows a successful season of racing around New Zealand and overseas. Mikayla will join the team at a training camp in Brisbane, followed by races in Australia and then Dubai to acclimatise and train in preparation for the world champs.
With the MAC ski and snowboard champs in the first week of term three, students are now hoping for some more white stuff on the mountains.
Blue Mountain College
Blue Mountain College was victorious 8-2 against Tokomairiro High School in its recent annual sports exchange. Both schools interacted well together.
At the OSS netball tournament, the senior A team finished ninth in its section, while the intermediate team gained 13th overall.
Tamara Weller has been selected in the Southland under-19 netball team and her sister, Cindy, in the Southland under-17 team. Other Eastern netball representatives are Luci Butler (under-17), Tyler Ogilvy (under-15), Laura Weller and Olivia Reihana (under-14).
Girls rugby coach Simon Kelly has recorded two wins so far this season - a pre-season victory over Cromwell College 20-15 and a 25-22 defeat of Southland Girls' High School third XV. With just over 70 girls in the senior school, the team struggles for numbers, but the girls that do compete are keen and eager to carry on.
Congratulations to Taine Rarere on his selection in the South Island Maori under-18 rugby team which will travel to Rotorua in July to play three North Island teams.
Hockey players Liam Criglington, Nikita Peterson-Solomon and Mikairi Beachamp-Moore have been selected in the Southland under-15 hockey teams and will travel to Tauranga for their tournament.
