Sport

There was no slowing down at the end of last term and it has been a busy start to term 4. We had grade 3/4 Hoop Time in the last week of Term 3 and in our first week back for Term 4, Grade 6s have participated in the District Softball competition and Inter School Sport Finals for Cricket Blast and Hot Shots Tennis. We also had 8 students compete at the Northern Metro Region Track and Field Championships this week. 

Grade 3/4  Hoop Time

I would like to thank all the parents who came and supported the students on the day and helped with scoring the games when needed. 

Special thanks to our coaches Simon Walsh and Oliver and Kane Tancredi. 

All 4 teams enjoyed themselves and had a successful day on the court. The Future Stars Girls and the Future Stars Mixed A went unbeaten in the group games and qualified for Region Finals Qualifying games. The Future Stars Girls played a team they had already beaten comfortably in the group, however in the grand final the team must have found another gear. The girls played extremely well however shots they were making earlier in the day weren’t going in and unfortunately fell short. The Future Stars A also went unbeaten in the pool stage and played some incredible basketball. They faced the strongest team their on the day in final and although the boys put up a good fight, the difference in skill showed started to show as the game went on. Although finishing 2nd the boys played some amazing basketball considering they had never played on the same time with each other before. The Future Stars B team had a great day too. They started strong winning their first 2 games but losing the next 2. One of those losses being the team that beat the Future Stars A in the final. 

Softball

This competition gets stronger and stronger each year. It’s never easy but for the past 6 years whoever wins our District comp, usually ends up playing the State Championships. The boys team was always going to find it tough as Viewbank PS, is coached by Mr Peters who has taken 4 softball teams to State in the past 6 years. Both the girls team and boys team needed to win every game to make the next round. Both teams played Rosanna Golf Links first. The boys lost by 4 runs and the girls won by 1 run. 

The next game was against Viewbank. The boys needed to win to maybe qualify for Division but against Viewbank, who are well drilled it was going to be difficult. We ended up losing and although we missed out on Division we did not let our heads drop for the last game against St Martins. We won our last game, finishing 3rd.

For the girls they knew beating Viewbank would have them playing at Division. It was game on. We chose to field first and restricted Viewbank to 4 runs and in the 2nd innings we kept them to 5. You couldn’t ask for better fielding. Viewbank also fielded well and kept our scoring low. However we went into the 3rd innings 11-9 our way. Their big hitters in the third found the space behind our outfield and hit 9 runs to have us needing 8 runs to beat them. It started well and we had 4 runs after 3 batters. With 6 batters to go we needed 4 runs. Viewbank closed the spaces and made some good fielding choices. We could only manage 1 more run, finishing the game 16-18. Tough loss. 

The third and final game against St Martins was a big win and had us finishing 2nd. 

Well Done to both teams. 

Cricket Blast

The girls were unbeaten for the whole term and went into finals as the favourites to be crowned District Champions. The first game against Rosanna Golf Links was an easy win. Batting scores weren’t huge however the girls fielding was great, and they picked up a number of 5 runs after getting wickets. The grand final against St Martins was a different story. After choosing to bat first the girls set a score of 84 for St Martins to chase. It looked pretty safe with the last 2 sets of batting partners needed 46 to win the game. After a few no balls and double zone 12, St Martins needed 11 of the last 4 bowls to win. 3 no balls were bowled and with the final ball, 3 runs were needed by St Martins (Bowling a no ball has gifts opponents 2 runs and a chance to hit off a tee). The final ball was bowled and it just made the crease and the batter was unable to strike the ball. HPS girls won and were crowned District Champions by 2 runs. Congratulations girls. 

Hot Shots Tennis

The boys team was unbeaten going into finals and the girls had only lost their first game by 1 set. Neither team had played Banyule PS though and they too were in the same boat as us. The boys played St Martins in the semi final first and after some challenging singles, went into doubles 6-4 up, with 5 doubles matches to play. The score finished 8-7 and a grand final place. After a slow start in the semi finals the boys came out swinging in the singles matches against Banyule PS. The score going into the doubles matches was 6-4 however the losses were really close. Needing only 2 doubles to win, the boys were confident they could do it and they all played superbly. The final score was 9-6 and finished District Champions. 

The girls played Rosanna who they lost to in the first game of the season. Their was some nerves but after 5 singles matches it was 4-1 our way. We were too strong for Rosanna this time around, winning 11-4 and booking a spot in the grand final against Banyule. The grand final was tough however after some solid single matches from the girls they went into the doubles matches 6-4 up. The girls only needed to win 2 doubles matches and I was feeling pretty confident the girls could get it done. Walking around during play I could see the top 3 doubles partners were coming off 2nd best and we thought after strong singles matches 2 of those would at least win. The saviours were the 4th and 5th double partners. The girls finished District Champions winning 8-7. 

Northern Metro Region Track and Field Championships

Well done to the 8 students who participated in the NMR Track and Field Championships on Wednesday. At this stage it is a tough competition as most of the students competing are members of Little Athletics Clubs. We didn’t have any students qualify for State this year however no one finished last, and students ran, jumped or threw PBs. 

Well done to the following students:

Genoah S – Discus 12 Boys

Lachlan C – Hurdles 12 Boys

Otis B – 200m 11 Boys

Harun I – Long Jump 11 Boys

Ava W, Olivia W, Elle W & Maya E – 4x100m Relay 11 Girls