HEPE and Sports

My Baseball Reflection

by Eliza Hunter Year 8MA

In March I participated in a baseball program at the Springvale Baseball Club that ran over four Friday nights. As I read through the email that Miss Roberts sent to us, I thought to myself ‘this sounds like something fun to do’. So I signed myself up not knowing what to expect and how much I really was going to enjoy it.

The first Friday night I walked in there with a smile on my face thinking that this was just a program to learn the game of baseball, but it was much more than that. There was music, popcorn, T-shirts, hats and other little things that were given out, there were balls and bats going everywhere, and girls of all ages having fun.

The program was very well run by some great people and coaches who were amazing. We were all split into teams and then went off to prepare and learn the rules of the game, which were well explained and demonstrated so we all understood. The drills that we were shown helped us learn key skills that we would need in a real game, such as throwing, catching, hitting and fielding. These drills also gave us time to get to know everyone and make new friends.

When we finished our drills, we were ready to play a real game of baseball. The coaches were nice and let us have as many shots as we needed to hit the ball, which I was thankful for as I wasn’t always able to hit the ball on the first try. Playing the game helped me learn the rules. 

I was very honoured and excited to receive a call at the conclusion of the program to say I had shown true Diamond Girls' values: effort, respect and teamwork over the duration of the program and they wanted to award me with a $250 scholarship to their baseball program and $250 worth of sporting equipment for Killester. This call made my day, week and probably month, because out of at least 30 girls, they picked me as the winner. However, I think that all the girls did an amazing job and made the program lots of fun.

I am very thankful that I had this opportunity to participate in the Diamond Girls program and I hope to see more girls out there playing sports, because the only person who can stop you from reaching your goals is you!  So get out there and have some fun!

Year 12 METS Incursion

As part of the Year 12 VCE Physical Education curriculum, we are currently learning about Energy systems and Acute response in relation to physical activity and how our body functions during exercise. To further develop our understanding on this, we participated in an incursion run by an Exercise Physiologist, Luke from METS Performance Consulting on Thursday 13th of May who came to help engage our knowledge through quantitative and qualitative data of real life sporting situations.

Two students, Rebecca and Anna kindly volunteered to undertake two tests on a stationary bicycle which were the Wingate and VO2 max test. The Wingate test that Rebecca performed measured her Anaerobic power in her lower body. At maximum intensity she cycled for 30 seconds which looked at the ATP-PC and Anaerobic Glycolysis system. During the beginning of the 6 seconds, her intensity was at the highest as she was using the ATP-PC system allowing explosive and fast movements. After 6 seconds of explosive and intense cycling, she started to feel a bit of a burning feeling in her muscles as her main energy system was now the Anaerobic Glycolysis system which involved fatiguing by products resulting in her intensity to decrease.

The VO2 max test Anna took is a measurement of the amount of oxygen she could utilise during intense exercise which tested her Cardiovascular and Aerobic endurance. To measure the oxygen consumption, wearing the VO2 mask connected to a machine showed the data. It went for 15 minutes and blood pricks were taken at different stages to measure the amount of oxygen uptake, the amount of breaths she took as well as metabolic by-products of lactic acid and hydrogen ions which is a main factor in causing fatigue. During the last few minutes, her lactic acid build up began to increase rapidly causing her to feel the burn in her muscles, eventually coming to a stop. Looking at the results, her oxygen uptake was considered higher than the average for a female which indicated that her oxygen intake to working muscles were better.

Overall, it was a very great opportunity to have METS come down and explain through the concepts we are currently studying, referring it to the data of the tests undertaken. This made the learning and understanding process much more simpler.

Exsight - Yr 11 Sport and Recreation 

by Abby Walsh Year 11

On May 25th, the Year 11 sport and recreation class got to participate in an incursion run by Daniel from ExSight Sports. ExSight Sports delivers experiential vision impaired challenges to Schools, Community Groups or Corporate teams. To start the lesson Daniel spoke to us about his own vision impairment and how it has affected him. We were then given the opportunity to try on some glasses that gave us the effect of certain vision impairments. The girls learnt how hard it is to complete simple tasks like recognising someone’s face and reading things when visually impaired. They got some practice with normal vision, but then wore goggles that made them have no sight. It started off as a real challenge for everyone but with Daniel's great instructions and help the girls got the hang of things pretty quickly. A trust activity was played with partners to teach girls on using their senses such as hearing and touch. This activity taught us that when you have no sight you need to have trust in things like your senses or another person to help you. A more major game of goal ball was then played.it gave everyone a chance to use the skills that they had just learnt. 

All of this relates to our topics completed so far in our course of sport and recreation. Daniels games were non-instructional and related to physical demands and disability requirements. We were able to grasp a better understanding of our work in a more hands-on experience. It also taught us about inclusivity and how sports can be adjusted to allow an array of different people to participate. 

Overall, it was a great experience to understand how sport is played with a visual impairment. 

SCSA Athletics 

by Mikayla Tjong, Year 12

On the 14th of May, the athletics team made their way to Lakeside stadium to compete in SCSA Athletics. Killester’s team was made up of some of our most competitive girls, competing in division two of SCSA. Our girls needed to fill in many events such as sprints and field events including high jump and shot put, but we persevered and did an amazing job! Killester’s girls did a great job bringing in the competitive spirit and chanting throughout the whole day, making sure all competitors felt encouraged by their peers. 

A big thank you to the staff who trained us during early mornings, keeping us organised throughout the day and supporting each and every one of us in all our events. And a special mention to Ms Buick for driving all the way to Lakeside Stadium to support us even though her day was just as busy as ours back at school. 

Despite the day being extremely cold, it was all worth it in the end with the junior team placing 6th out of nine schools, intermediates placing 3rd and of course seniors placing 1st with just four year 12’s participating and of course the younger year levels stepping in to help us.  Congratulations to all the girls who held up the school spirit proudly and good luck to the girls next year, make Killester proud!