Sport

SPC House Swimming

After a year’s break due to the extreme heat, the Annual House Swim Carnival was back at the Eureka Pool on Thursday, 6 March. What started as a cool, cloudy morning and a reprieve from the heat, opened to a perfectly sunny, warm day.

The Year 7 and 8 students and their respective House leaders filled the pool with much excitement in the morning session. We introduced new events to compliment the program for our swimmers – 200IM (Individual Medley) and 100m Freestyle. The Year 9-12s arrived with as much and more enthusiasm. The colour and costumes amongst the Year 12 leaders was creative and entertaining. The spirit amongst the Houses was palpable!

The results below show a tight competition all-round - especially for 1st and 2nd.

There were many outstanding performances on the day. There were also many happy, proud swimmers no matter their place! There were two swimming records broken on the day: 

• Year 12 50m Breaststroke – Ed Meddings (Keniry) swam 32.16 and the old time was 33.04
• Year 12 Medley Relay was won by Ryan House in record time of 2.13.06, smashing an old record (2011) of 2.26.96.

A new 3v3 Basketball Competition at each year level was held on the day. The competition was tight, the music was pumping and the crowd cheering. New events were run in the 25m Novelty Pool – lots of fun was had!

Age Group Champions

Upcoming SPC Swimming events:

• BAS Swim Carnival - Tuesday, 18 March 11.30am–4.30pm at Ballarat Aquatic Centre
• ACC Swim Championships – Wednesday, 26 March at MSAC

We won Division 2 last year, so we will enter into Division 1 with a very strong team.

We need all swimmers on board for these two major events swimming for the school. 

- Ms Macquire

ACC Cricket: Semi Final

St Patrick’s College v St Bernard’s College

Having gone through the home and away season undefeated for the third straight season, there was pressure on our team to finally win a Semi Final after losing the last two. St Bernard’s won the toss and elected to bat first. Jack McMahon and Hamish McNamara once again opened the bowling and continued their very economical bowling. After a slow start Jack and Hamish each claimed a wicket to have St Bernard’s in trouble at 2/8 after 7 overs.  Jack bowled his six overs straight to finish with exceptionally economical figures of 1/5. The wickets continued to fall steadily with Linc Koliba, Harry Sutherland and Max Bunworth each claiming a wicket. Armi Wakefield claimed 2/12 from his six overs in a fine leg spin bowling performance. A great bowling effort had them at 8/73 in the 28th over. A 32-run partnership for the ninth wicket boosted their total to 105, a low score in ACC.

After a great bowling performance, it was now up to our batsman to complete the victory. Despite chasing a small total, we were still aware of the pressure on the batsman. Linc and Ryder O’Brien opened the batting and were looking comfortable until Linc was caught at cover for eight. Harry Scardamaglia joined Ryder and settled straight back into his rhythm. Ryder was dismissed for 17, as we had progressed to 2/43. Albie Cheeseman came in and was intent on trying to finish the match quickly, but despite a few lofty swings was unable to connect and was clean bowled right on drinks for seven. At 2/60 with only 46 required, we were quite comfortable, but Harry had Deb practice to get to, so had to start with the scoring. Unfortunately, he was dismissed with 25 still required. His knock of 27 from 51 balls, had steered us close to victory. Lachlan Rea and Armi were batting at ease before Lachlan was dismissed for a great 23 from only 31 balls. Max Bunworth was the new batsman and was there to witness Armi hit a boundary to seal the five-wicket victory with more than seven overs left. A great team effort.

The winner sees us progress to the Grand Final, where we will take on St Joseph’s College.

2nd XI Cricket

 SPC Blue 8/87 def by Ballarat Clarendon College 9/93

In the summer and now autumn that keeps on giving to the sun loving cricketers of St Pat's, SPC Blue played Ballarat Clarendon College on our Main Oval. Bowling first SPC Blue was able to a keep a moderate hold on the BCC batting by taking regular wickets with slick fielding causing a number of run outs and two Ryan Cook stumpings being a highlight. BCC finished up on 9/93 off their 20 overs. Our wicket taking bowlers were Alex Dalton 1/2, Will Steinhuis 1/15, Seth Kudagamage 1/17, Kolby Haley 1/9, Aayush Ahlawat 1/5 and Ben Buckland 2/8. 

Once again we were facing a run chase of just under five runs per over and the last time we met BCC their bowling attack proved to be a little too strong for our batters, but in 2nd XI cricket anything can happen! 

Will Steenhuis got us off to a good start with 13 before he was caught. Aayush Ahlawat made a magnificently crafted 38 which was almost the turning point in a very close game as SPC Blue tried everything to make up the required runs but fell just six runs short with multiple runouts attempting to find the all-elusive final runs to finish off our 20 overs on 8/87. Despite the loss much was still to be gained by our SPC Blue cricketers that will hold them in good stead in future games this season and beyond.

Mr Busscher,

SPC Blue Coach

BAS Junior Cricket

SPC Gold v BHS @ Vic Park 1-2

SPC Gold 5/150 def by BHS 6/104

Gold Captain: Jack Costigan

Manager(s) Mr. Kent/Mr. Morris

SPC Gold met Ballarat High School on Vic Park 1 and 2 grounds. The ovals are bone dry with full value for your shots. Conditions were very warm and sunny. All three SPC junior teams played at Vic Park and there wasn’t a spare seat traveling to the venue on the bus – full capacity. 

BHS were ready and waiting with Mr Morris setting up the cones and stumps before we arrived. This allowed us to get though our overs in good time, finishing at about 5.25pm. Thanks Mr Morris.

NB: Riley Cirvydas played, having been named an emergency to give us the optimum number of 15 lads.  Riley’s commitment and responsible act is commendable, thanks Riley. Also, Jack Sims acquitted himself well on his first outing for SPC. Congratulations Jack.

Highlights for Gold

Batting: W James 44 runs, J. Costigan retired 34 runs, H Williams 26 runs retired.

Bowling: M. Spurgo, J Sims and B. Molloy all taking a wicket each and three run outs. 32 Sundries were conceded. 

Fielding: The wicket keeping was solid again with L Anderson and H Williams sharing the duties. Henry was very tidy with the gloves completing two runouts and a catch behind, while P Davey and L Anderson were involved in the other runout. The fielding was very good generally with a few misfields going to the boundary. M Spurgo was outstanding throughout the innings. 

As Mr Morris put it, “It was a batsman’s day”, with Will James, Captain J Costigan, and H Williams taking the game away from the opposition. Top scorer for BHS was ‘Extras” with 32 and two bats making 15 runs a piece. Our bowling was adequate without being outstanding and the fielding and field placings served the team well. 

The game was played in good spirits and a healthy respect for the opposition was evident. It was very pleasing to see the lads beginning to combine and play as a team. Congratulation boys.

Good cricketing,

Mr Kent, Mr Morris, Mr Barfoot and Ms Jennings

GOLD: There will be a meeting held this Friday at recess in OMW002 boys, please watch out for the detail of the meeting on MS Teams and the daily school notices.

Football Respect Cup

St Patrick’s College is once again excited to join forces with Loreto College to compete against St Joseph’s College Geelong, and Sacred Heart College Geelong respectively, to play the “Respect Cup” on Wednesday, March 19 at GMHBA Stadium in Geelong. 

The initiative has been timed around International Woman’s Day (IWD) with the event promoting the importance of gender equality and respectful relationships. The combined scores for both games will determine the overall winner between the Ballarat and Geelong teams. 

Incorporated within the Jumper design are indigenous symbols that signify respectful relationships. Federation University has very kindly sponsored the playing apparel for both schools, whilst the City of Ballarat has very generously supplied the use of Mars Stadium for the day.     

The event promises to be a great afternoon and we invite all in our community to attend and support this most worthy initiative. If you are unable to make it in person, the game will be live streamed. The live stream link will be uploaded to our St Patrick’s College’s Facebook page prior to game.

Communication

The best form of communication we have with parent/guardians is via the Parent Access Module (PAM). Students require permission to participate in all sport. Parent/guardians will receive the information through a PAM activity permission. Please ensure that you read the information prior to giving permission and that you also talk to students about the information. 

The daily messages are one of the best ways we can distribute information to students about sports that are on offer and where sign-up meetings will be held. Students should check the daily messages regularly.

Once students have signed up for a sport, we will be adding them into a MS Teams group where they can communicate directly with their coach. Students must communicate with their coach if they are unavailable for a match so we can find a replacement to ensure we have a full team for each match.

If students are unsure of how to sign up for a sport or want more information, they can visit sports staff in the gymnasium. 

SPC Sport Uniform

All sport uniforms can be purchased at Dobsons Uniform Shop, located in Mair St, Ballarat. Students need to ensure they are in the correct uniform to participate in Sport. We have a fantastic uniform, and students should wear the Green, White and Blue with pride. 

The general sport uniform is the navy blue polo top, navy shorts and white socks. Certain sports will require very specific clothing e.g. 1st XI Cricketers require SPC Whites, SPC cricket shirt and SPC cricket cap. Students should check with their coach as to what is required. Also remember to wear sunscreen at all times.

I wish all students and coaches the best in 2025. Always play the game in the right spirit, wear the correct uniform and respect the facilities, home and away. St Patrick’s College is steeped in sporting tradition and 2024 was an historic year for Sport at SPC. 

Please do not hesitate to contact me (jlappin@stpats.vic.edu.au) or our Sports Administrator Mr Simon Dwyer (sdwyer@stpats.vic.edu.au) at the College with any questions.