Logan Park High School
Year 12 student Tayla Ward has returned from competing for the New Zealand women's luge team at the World Cup in Austria, Germany and Italy during December and January.
Tayla won the individual junior women's division at the Austrian Cup in Judenburg. Tayla also won the New Zealand open luge cup last year. Year 12 pupil Jonty Horwell, the New Zealand secondary schools boys champion who is in the South Island under-21 development team, has been selected by the Bowls NZ national selection panel for consideration by the New Zealand Olympic Committee for the Commonwealth Youth Games in Samoa in September.
Year 9 student Annie Kennedy-Atchison was selected to represent the region in the national junior surf life-saving champs at Mount Maunganui. Annie competed with the St Clair Club at the southern region junior champs at Waikouaiti at the end of Januaryand contributed to her club's overall points win by claiming two golds, four silvers and two bronze medals in her events.
St Hilda's Collegiate
While competing for North End at the South Island club rowing championships, crews containing St Hilda's girls won gold in the girls under-16 8+, silver in the girls under-16 4+ and women's 4x. A bronze medal was won in the women's 8+ and the girls under-16 4+. They have purchased a new eight, which has been named Lauren Farnden after the coach who has contributed hugely to the continued success of the squad.
The St Hilda's touch team won the Otago secondary schools girls tournament last month. The following girls have been representing Otago Touch in age-group teams at nationals: under-7 girls - Abbey Johnston, Paige Thomson, Meg Timu, Jessica Gray, Casey Brown and under-15 mixed - Jess Faulks, Olivia O'Neill, Bridget Johnstone. After competing in these tournaments, Abbey Johnston was selected in the New Zealand under-17 girls touch team and Bridget Johnstone in the New Zealand under-15 mixed team.
Danica Davies has also been successful in the heptathlon, winning the junior women's nationals in Wellington. In doing so, she broke the Otago 17 and 18 age-group records and has been selected to travel to California with the New Zealand secondary schools team.
King's High School
The King's junior cricket team travelled to Southland Boys' High School to play in the regional final for the NZCT Cup. Southland Boys' won the toss and elected to bowl.
Nic Brosnahan and Connor Murray put on a 77-run partnership for the second wicket. Opener Brosnahan carried his bat and was 68 not out in the total of 179 for seven off our 40 overs.
In reply, things did not look great with Southland at 100 for three but an excellent fielding and bowling display in the second part of the innings reduced Southland to 118 for six. It came down to the 40th over, with Southland needing five runs and King's needing two wickets.
Jack Oaten snared the two remaining wickets, both caught at midwicket by Thomas Walding.
King's will now travel to Palmerston North to represent the Otago region (south of the Waitaki River) in the NZCT Cup finals.
John McGlashan College
Thirty-five boys will represent the college at the Otago athletics secondary schools champs this year. The team will be lead by Oli Chignell, who was fourth at last year's nationals in the road race. Four secondary school track records were broken at the school champs this year. Two records were set in the 100m events (Johnny Baker, 11.63 sec, bettered brother Charlie's novice record; Guillaume Bennani, 11.27sec, senior). Nico Bowering set a novice record in the 200m (25.51 sec) and Oli Chignell broke the old senior 3000m by 17.5sec (9min 08.3sec).
Thirteen rowers are preparing for the Maadi Cup in late March. Results to date are promising, with the pair of Woody Kirkwood and Tom Grave finishing sixth at the NZ rowing champs under-19 double and Lochie Chittock and Bradley Leydon fourth in the men's premier lightweight double. The tennis team of Carlos Reid, Mitchell Sizemore, Peter Hartono, Thomas Hartono and Josh Caldwell heads to Timaru in early March to defend its South Island title. Peter Hartono represented New Zealand during the Christmas break.
East Otago High School
At the end of 2014, East Otago High School awarded its school sporting achievement awards. The NZSS champion curling team of Cameron Bartrum, Liam McKenzie, Josh Ollerenshaw and Bob Martin claimed the team of the year award. Maori sportsperson of the year went to New Zealand high school rodeo representative Sam Church. Female sportsperson of the year was Olivia Ollerenshaw for her efforts in winning the SISS duathlon champs, then recovering from a major accident and getting back to training ready for 2015 events. Cameron Bartrum was named sportsman of the year and overall sportsperson of the year for his leadership of the successful curling team as well as his part of the team that won the SISS duathlon intermediate section. Olivia Ollerenshaw has made it to the top three in the junior sportswoman of the year in the Network Waitaki sports awards.
Sam Church has had a successful rodeo season, breaking into the open section in saddle bronc and winning the national title of saddle bronc rookie of the year.
Equestrian eventers Jasmine Neilson, Sophie Muir, Anna Lindsay and Pippa Collins have all had successes at various shows in the area with Pippa, on My Sweet Pea, winning champion show hunter and best Otago-Southland training show hunter pony for 2015.
Roxburgh Area School
The year has been exceedingly busy with schoolwide events in triathlon, swimming and athletics. Amelia Pasco and Jonty McKinnel were the senior swimming champions and Alex Darling and Brooke Johnston/Erin Vernon tied as under-15 champions and Haidyn Pringle and Tea Rooney/Neleah Manderson the under-13 champions . Jonty McKinnel and Briana Forbes were the senior athletic champions while Mara McCurdy and Jesse Moore were under-16 champions and Dion Muir and Danae Wales were under-14 champions. The triathlon was won by Jonty McKinnel and Briana Forbes (year 11-13) and Tiaan McKinnel and Danae Wales (year 9-10). The highlight of the past few weeks was the mixed team of Amelia Pasco, Jack Lennon and Jesse Moore, who finished second in the Otago Secondary triathlon in Cromwell. Other good performances were achieved by Jonty McKinnel winning the individual multisports senior boys section and Tiaan McKinnel winning the junior multisport event. Otago Girls' High SchoolThe Otago Girls' sports day last month was the first one in which students competed for house points. Several school records were broken: Sydney Evans-Tobata - year 13 200m, Emma Takapi - year 13 shotput, Emma Ward - year 12 high jump and twins Jenna and Taylor Thorne, in year 10 both broke the school high jump record with jumps of 1.58m.
The school is very proud of year 13 student Georgia Mason, who has been named in the Black Ferns training squad.
At the South Island rowing championships, Karley Wilden-Palms was second in the under-19 women's single sculls and teamed up with Juliette Lequeux to come second in the women's club double sculls and second in the women's club coxless quad sculls. Juliette also came 2nd in the B final of the under-17 women's single sculls. Hayley Deblecourt and Rebecca Walker were third in the B final of the women's novice double sculls. At the New Zealand rowing championships, Karley Wilden-Palms and Juliette Lequeux won the B final of the coxless quad sculls and were fifth in the A final of the under-19 double sculls. At the southern region surf life-saving championships at New Brighton recently, Kaori Kitahara, Lucy Matehaere and Carina Donegan all performed particularly well. Otago Girls' finished third in the girls' section at the recent Otago secondary schools touch championships.
Maniototo Area School
During January some of our senior students competed in the Pacific Asia Junior Curling Championships in Naseby with great success. These five students were members of the NZ Under 21 curling teams.
Holly Thompson and Jessica Smith as part of the New Zealand girls team won bronze medals, beating Japan in a tie-breaker game. Simon Neilson, Matthew Neilson and Josh Whyte were members of the boys team and finishing fourth overall.
Taieri College
On Taieri College's athletics day, the college had 12 records broken. These records were broken by nine different individuals across a wide range of events. Many of these students would later be part of the Taieri College took part in the Taieri College Secondary Schools Athletics team which competed in the Otago Championships over the weekend. Taieri College had 49 students take part on the day. The team performed outstandingly as a group, with 14 students gaining top three performances. This was led by the performances of Hannah Ashton, 1st place x 3 - all record-breaking, plus a 2nd place; Hamish Mears, 1st place x 3 - all record-breaking, plus a 2nd place; Mat Cramond, 1st senior high jump, and Bradley Tarleton, 1st senior boys hammer. The Taieri College mixed tennis team took part in the Otago Tennis qualifying tournament. This tournament had teams from across the Otago region playing for the honour of representing the province at the South Island Secondary Schools Tournament. The young Taieri College team performed well against a very strong South Otago team but lost narrowly. A team of 19 triathletes from Taieri College travelled to Cromwell to compete in the Otago Secondary Schools' Sports Association Otago/Southland Triathlon. Vicki Clarke finished third in the senior girls' section. One of the senior mixed teams - Tanish Keach, Bradley White and Viljami Vuorenmaa - took home first place in its section.
• These articles are compiled by the Otago Secondary Schools Sports Association (OSSSA) which is proudly sponsored by Perpetual Guardian.
