OGPS Sporting Stars of the Future

You may remember that we featured the achievements of two former students of Orchard Grove, Kate Eddy (playing netball at the Melbourne Vixens) and Jordan Ridley (playing Australian football at Essendon) in the newsletter last year. While these two continue to  proudly and successfully represent their clubs, there are some other past students who are having success in their chosen sports.

Hana Basic is currently the Australian national champion for the women's 100 metres. Her best time of 11.18 seconds is the fourth-fastest ever recorded by an Australian woman. With the Olympics fast appropaching, Hana needs to improve her time by three-hundredths of a second to qualify for the event in Japan. There is also a chance that Australia may qualify for a place in the 4 x 100m relay event and, if so, we should be able to see Hana compete in this. Our fingers are crossed that she can continue the improvements in her time that have enabled her to achieve much success at a national level and, hopefully, earn her that Olympic selection. Hana was the Wurundjeri house captain in 2007. In a recent article in the Herald Sun, Hana was quoted as saying, "I got put into gymnastics...but then my old PE teacher identified me, I guess, sent me off to little aths, and the rest is history." That teacher was our own Mrs Kate Enticott, who our current students may have seen as a CRT, but was once our full-time PE teacher.

Jessica Campbell is now a member of the Melbourne Rebels squad in the Super W rugby union competition, the top competition for women in Australia. Their season begins soon and, hopefully, we will see Jess make her debut as their scrum half. Jess was our school captain in 2012, and began her rugby journey at the Box Hill Mustangs. However, she had to move on to the Melbourne University club due to there not being enough girls at Box Hill to continue playing. More recently, Jess has been playing at Monash University, where she has also been studying a Bachelor of Science. in 2019, she travelled to Lisbon to play in the Portugal Rugby Youth Festival where she represented the Melbourne Kangaroos, winners of the girls Under 19 division.

While Hana and Jess succeed at an adult level, we have many former students having success at a junior level that may one day lead to them being selected in senior teams.

Maddi Ridley has already achieved much in junior netball, recently being part of the Australian 21 and Under squad. Having moved to Queensland early this year, Maddi is now a member of the Bond Uni Bull Sharks in the Sapphire Series, Queensland's premier netball competition. She has also recently been selected to represent Queensland in their 19 and Under team for the upcoming state championships, where she will take the court in the goal defence position. Maddi was school captain in 2014.

On Sunday May 16, the Oakleigh Chargers U19 girls team won the NAB League grand final. This team featured Lily Hart (number 34; Warrawong captain in 2016) and Erin Woodford (number 16; Wurundjeri captain in 2015). Lily also represented Vic Metro in the U17 state carnival earlier this year. The NAB League is the major junior pathway to the AFLW and, while both girls are too young to be eligible for the upcoming draft, they will continue with Oakleigh in 2022 and may end up in the elite competition in the future.

Oakleigh defeated Eastern Ranges to earn a spot in that grand final, a team which features another former OGPS student, Mia Busch (Wurundjeri captain 2016). Along with Lily, Mia also represented Vic Metro in the U17 carnival. At the conclusion of the 2021 NAB League season, Mia was named in the Team of the Year. In addition to that, Mia was awarded the Eastern Ranges' best and fairest for the 2021 season. With another year to play before she is eligible to be drafted into the AFLW, Mia seems to be ticking all the right boxes in her quest to play at the elite level.

As the boys' season continues, we'll be keeping an eye out for Cal Joseph (Under 19s) and 2016 school captain Max Gruzewski (Under 17s) who both play at Oakleigh Chargers.

In the Australian Gynmastic Championships held this month, Caitlin Pugh (at the front of the photo) was part of the silver medal-winning trio in the Level 7 Womens Trio Dynamic Routine event (thanks to our resident gymnastics expert, Miss Ramsay, for alerting us to this result).

Finally, Kai Stewart has been selected to represent the Eastern Football and Netball League Under 14 boys in the up-coming interleague tournament, to be held over the Queen's Birthday long weekend.

Off the field, Fletcher Fraser (bottom right) has joined the VFL commentary team at radio station 3WBC (94.1FM) for the 2021 season. His podcast, Footy with Fletch, is now up to its eighteenth episode, and has seen him interview such former greats as Paul Roos, Brad Johnson and Matthew Lloyd.

If you know of any other former students whose success, sporting or otherwise, should be shared with our school community, please contact the school and let us know.