SSP NEWS

Netball 

Here we are at the end of Term 3 and what a busy term it has been in the Specialist Netball Program with much learnt and achieved on and off the court to celebrate across our Junior, Intermediate and Senior Programs. We also held trials and welcomed our 2024 Yr 7 intake. And all jam packed into 9 weeks!!

In Education, one of the main focuses for the term has been centred around the Netball World Cup held in Capetown South Africa where our Australian Diamonds took out there 12th World Title, an amazing achievement. Student Athletes were introduced to match analysis, performance assessment and investigating various countries game styles. Through the program Sportscode/Hudl we identified systems and progressed to statistics analysis and interpretation. A highlight was the World Cup presentations in groups (juniors) and individually (intermediate and seniors) as part of their General Assessment Task. 

We have also been fortunate to have some guest speakers present to our player athletes across the term to build their knowledge on the following topics:

-Nutrition, Sam Coppinger

-Women’s Health, Emily Shears 

As well as completing modules covering:

-Introduction to Psychology and Performance Anxiety

- Team Dynamics

- Feedback Cycle

- Athlete Wellbeing awareness

In our court sessions, we have been breaking up into our Specialist Areas and specifically working on goaling, defending and centre court skills; a range of court systems and match play to put our skills into practise and to prepare for several tournaments throughout the term. We were fortunate to have Australian Diamond Legend and Melbourne Vixens Specialist Goaling Coach Caitlin Thwaites in for to work with our goalers.

During this final week of Term 3, we completed some sessions on Team Dynamics, covering communication and how we interact and support and respect each other as teammates, leadership, problem solving as a unit and really embracing the groups passion for netball and enjoyment of being together as a group. We were fortunate to have Australian Diamond Legend, Melbourne Vixens Premiership Player and Vixens Specialist Goaling Coach Caitlin Thwaites in for to work with our goalers.

Our Strength and Conditioning coaches have finished re-testing our student athletes in the gym and have been very impressed with the results. Next term will see the player athletes re-tested in their on court fitness components. A massive thankyou goes to S&C Charlie ‘The Chief’ Perks, Nic Richardson and Seth for your guidance and support. All student athletes have come so far in 3 terms especially in the standards and expectations of sessions.

During this term we continued our preparations for our 2024 Specialist Netball Program by conducting a 2 week trial process for our Year 7 intake which incorporated agility, ball work, skill assessments and match play rounds. The selected netball athletes were then welcomed to WHC, along with all Year 7 2024 students, as part of a Welcome & Information Evening. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet the player athletes and their families and really look forward to an exciting 2024.

School Sport Victoria Netball Championships have kept us very busy this term. We took an Intermediate and a Senior female team who were successful in winning the Geelong region through to the SSV Western Metropolitan Sports Region. Our Intermediate team finished with a Runners up which they should be very proud as it was terrific exposure to talented netball athletes, competition and a great overall learning experience. The Intermediate Boys Netball Team finished Runners up at the SSV State Championships and we congratulate them for finishing 2nd in the state!

On Friday 1st September, it was time to head to the Waverly Netball Centre in the SSV State Championships for the Year 7 girls. There were 3 rounds of games: Game 1 vs Ringwood Secondary College, WON 25 to 18, Game 2 vs Catherine McAuley College LOST 16 to 30, Game 3 vs Marist-Sion College WON 18 TO 15. Then came the finals: Semi Final against Trinity College WON 25 to 16. The Grand Final game was against Catherine McAuley College and the Year 7’s went down by 1, 22 to 23. They gave it their all and we couldn’t have been more proud of their effort and determination. Congratulations to Macey Cook, Kaycee Taylor, Jahzarah Povey, Larissa Huismann, Ruby Cook, Jemma Grenfell, Indi Madden, Neveah Peta, Charlotte Sharrock, Hayley Evans and Paige Pititto on finishing 2nd in the State!

Our final tournament for the term was the Netball Victoria Schools Championships on Tuesday 5th September at Melbourne Sports Centre- Parkville. The selected team comprised of Year 7 and 8 girls, all from our Specialist Netball Program. We played in 9 rounds for the day consisting of two 7minute halves. Most games were very close, going down by 1 on many occasions and managing to draw one game. The NV tournament allowed the girls to experience a new format of netball and take on the challenge of the next level. We were able to take a lot away from the day and implement it into our improvement programming for Term 4 and 2024.

Congratulations to all the Student Athletes across our program for your commitment and effort in Term 3. We still have many players involved in local league finals and we wish them all the best with their respective teams as we hit Grand Final weeks including a few rivalries between classmates as they take on each other from bragging rights!

Have a safe and enjoyable school holidays, and be ready for an exciting Term 4 with much planned including Fast5 Netball action!!

Susan, Stacey & Ainsley and the Specialist Netball Program Staff

Basketball

Term 3 was a busy one for the basketball program. We had lots of students out representing the school at tournaments. We are super excited for our U17 boys team who are competing at the state final for the Basketball Victoria Champions Cup this weekend. The boys have gone undefeated in the rounds, then in the Elite 8 stage to progress to this final. They will come up against Rowville Secondary College at Nunawading Basketball Stadium at 3:30pm this Sunday. We’d love to see as many students there to support as possible!

On Tuesday, our Senior boys competed at the state finals for School Sport Victoria. Unfortunately they weren’t successful on the day but a great achievement to make it that far.

We are excited to announce that Western Heights has entered a partnership with the Deakin University Melbourne Boomers for the 2023/24 season. The partnership gives the female students of the WHC Specialist Basketball program access to the Boomers online academy and the ability to watch the Boomers train at the Boombox. In addition to this, WHC current coach and Boomers star Aimie Rocci will showcase the WHC SSP logo on her warm-up top and spectators will see WHC signage around the Boombox. With Aimie playing for the Boomers it was a natural connection to make. We wish Aimie all the best as she finishes up with the program until Term 2 next year whilst the WNBL is on.

We look forward to Term 4!!

Aimie Rocci, Basketball Program Coach

Western Heights is excited to announce it has entered a partnership with the Deakin University Melbourne Boomers for the 2023/24 season. The partnership gives the WHC Specialist Basketball program female students access to the Boomers online academy and the ability to watch the Boomers train at the Boombox. In addition, WHC current coach and Boomers star Aimie Rocci will showcase the WHC SSP logo on her warm-up top, and spectators will see WHC signage around the Boombox. 

“It’s exciting for us to partner with the Melbourne Boomers for the 2023/24 season. With Aimie playing for them, it was a natural connection to make. It is something special and a point of difference for WHC specialist basketball students to have access to the Boomers Academy and to see the pathway that is open for them to aspire to and follow in the future. I know our WHC community will get on board with the Boomers and show Aimie and the team much support this season.” 

Kaleb Sclater, Director of Basketball 

Aspiring Athletes Program 

Aspiring Athlete students have been learning about athlete recovery and techniques. As part of this work students have been partaking in a range of techniques. This included last week when then did ice baths.

Samuel Johns, Aspiring Athletes Program Teacher