Sport - Soccer

It was a rollercoaster day in Wodonga today for our 24 Year 8s competing at the Upper Hume Soccer carnival.

Our Year 8 Girls blasted their way past Victory Lutheran College Wodonga in the opening match at Kelly Park, winning 4-0 with Liv Day brilliant kicking 3 goals herself in the 40 minute match, and Inanay Gilson adding another.

They then disposed of crosstown rival Cathedral College (1-0), with Inanay Gilson scoring the match winner with a tremendous individual effort after a long surging run to lead her team into the Final against Catholic College Wodonga.

After 40 minutes of Soccer in the Final , the scores were 0-0, and it came down to a Penalty Shootout. Catholic College were fortunate to have a Goalkeeper well over 6-feet tall, and despite Liv Day and Ruby Burns both putting their shots into the Net, we went down 2-4 in the Shootout to narrowly miss out being Upper Hume Champions and progressing to the Hume Region stage.

The girls should be extremely proud of themselves as a team. With only 4 of the 12 girls that play competition Soccer, it's a great effort. Other than outstanding playmakers and scorers Day & Gilson, Ruby O'Kane was said to be outstanding and "impenetrable" in defence.

Over at Willow Park, the Boys team had mixed results but some epic highlights. They went down (0-7) in their opener against a very strong Catholic College Wodonga, with our only 2 Soccer players (Co-Captains Darcy Waide & Leo Woodburne) playing a lone hand although Hugh Spring was solid as Goalkeeper and saved several certain goals. 

The boys improved dramatically in Game 2 vs Cathedral College, with all players proving capable, and could have scored a few times especially the multi-Sport-talent Clarence Lampa who looked the most likely to score, but went down eventually (0-2).

Their final match was the highlight, against Wodonga Middle Years College. After finding themselves down 0-1 early in the 2nd half, it was Clarence Lampa who set up our first goal, working with Andrew Fraser then brilliantly finding skipper Leo Woodburne alone in the box, who turned smoothly and scored truly to level it at 1-1.

Shortly after, Lampa pulled off the play of the day. With everyone on the field exhausted, he worked forward to win the ball 30m from goal, rolled his ankle, recovered, beat his defender, dribbled into the box, and put it past the goalie (who just got his fingertips to it) to score a screaming match winner. It was a terrific day overall, with highs and lows, and eventually heartbreak for the Girls, but that's all part of Sport.

Thank you to the 24 players who competed, to Year 10s Emilio Miliankos-King & Levi Zachariou for coaching the Boys, Head Prefect Kalika Milinkos-King for coaching the Girls (some of who she's coaching this season and in fact has training with tonight!), and staff member Ash Clayton and trainee P.E teacher Bailey Annett for helping too.

We look forward to reporting on the Intermediate & Senior Soccer trips which are happening on the 28th & 30th of May also in Wodonga.

Next week we have tryouts every day, with 4 days of Netball, and one of Year 7 Boys Badminton.

Jud Mullins

Sports Coordinator