Table Tennis Tournament

April 1, 2025 is a historic day for our school, it is a day that will be etched in NHS, it is the day that we competed in the Western High School Table Tennis Tournament. Entering teams in both the Knockout tournament and the prestigious Steve Dainton Cup.

6 athletes Willow, Myles, Jaxon, Emmett, Clemente and Felix departed early to the hallowed grounds of the Albury Table Tennis Centre for Excellence to compete in the Knockout alongside the Steve Dainton Cup armed with nothing but our skills and custom paddles “The Tornado” “The Hurricane” and “The Cyclone” designed and painstakingly decorated by Felix. First, we are faced with our biggest grudge match, the knockout. We came up against Kooringal High led by Ex-Allum Mr Robert McClay in what turned out to be a riveting best-of-7 set match. This is like the NBA finals except even bigger.

With Emmett showing why he deserved that number 1 slot he easel downed his opponent 3-1 in a first-to-three set. To add some drama to the day we came up against some early competitive nerves to lose our next two sets putting the pressure on our 4th seed Clemente. Clemente came out with some real heart and guts, taking his game all the way to the fifth game of the set. Faced at a 2-2 stalemate, Clemente dug deep and took the game deep into the 5th set, edging it out a tight heart-in-mouth victory in extra points before taking the game 18-16. Heading into the doubles, we got our first win comfortably with the team of Emmett and Felix, before narrowly losing our next game in another tight 5. It all came down to game 7, with Mr Mclay and I both on the sidelines rallying our boys to victory. At the end of the day, it was us The Mighty NHS who got the choccies and downed Kooringal in a well-played 3-1. This lit the fire for our fellas, and we started to ride a momentum for the day. Our eyes were in, the top spin was spinning and we were really ready to Ping some Pong.

In the second tournament, the prestigious Steve Dainton Cup our team of Willow and Mylo came up against Albury and absolutely cruised to victory winning all three of their sets. When asked for comment Willow the senior of the team told me to focus on the knockout fellas, and reassuringly said “We got this” and Myle’s eyes were solely on the prize of bringing home the cup. They teamed up expertly and played their way through the first two rounds of the tournament with ease and class.

Back to the knockout, and we come up against James Fallon; with the energy high from our first-round win, the fellas towelled up the competition despite James Fallon boasting a semi-professional table tennis player who has won big on the tour rotation, quickly getting up in this round 4 sets to 2 proving that we displayed excellent teamwork fight.

With both teams in the final round of their respective tournaments, I had to step outside and call the team's spiritual centre, the whirlwind of passion that is Lizzy Mclay to share our progression. If I thought this would calm the nerves I was dead wrong, and, instead she hyped us up to push on for glory.

In the knockout, we entered into the final against Murray, who, with a manager and coach who is a proud table tennis player had the edge over us. We fought hard with each of the boy's sets going the distance, but, with our athletic fitness not being tailored to the harsh demands of table tennis we were fading fast. We went down in our first 3 sets, and it was up to Felix to step up. With trust Tornado in hand, he fought hard and got us on the board in the final, however, this wasn’t enough, and we lost in the grand final. With reassurance that this was part of the plan, so we got invited back the next year and our focus turned to the Dainton Cup.

All I can say is we had better just make some room in the trophy cabinet because I am proud to announce that we have a new piece of silverware making its way to NHS. The team of Myles and Sam throughout the day didn’t drop a single set of doubles and played exemplary defeating the two Albury schools and Kooringal in the best table tennis played by footy and cricket stars we’ve ever seen. Once again, proving that NHS is the premier sporting school in the Riverina

Whilst it is nice to bring home the trophy, I am once again proud to work with everyone here at NHS and the sportsmanship, and respect for the game and others was exemplary throughout. I assured the organisers that this isn’t a flash in the pan and NHS are there to compete well into the future. Table Tennis was the real winner today.

Mr Jake Bailey

Table Tennis Coach