YEAR 7 GIRLS TENNIS STATE FINAL DAY

The Year 7 Girls Tennis team consisting of Kripa Shrestha, Kate Nguyen, Phoebe Rodda and Cheshta Phulara headed to Boroondara Tennis Centre in Bulleen on Friday 22 November to meet seven other schools from around the state in the final of the Tennis SSV competition.

McKinnon was in a pool with Yarrawonga, Trinity College Colac and the Catholic College in Sale. The girls came out firing in the first game against Yarrawonga, winning all six sets to take a commanding victory.

Game two against Trinity College Colac was a much tighter affair with the two schools unable to be separated after the six sets. Three sets each and equal on games won so we had to share the points.

That left us having to win the final group game against the Catholic College Sale to advance to the semi final stage. We managed to take care of proceedings fairly comfortably, dropping just one set to win five sets to one.

This left us on top of our pool and up against Buckley Park in the semi final. After winning three of the four singles games we managed to coast through to the final fairly comfortably winning four sets to two overall.

In somewhat of a surprise, the seemingly powerful Balwyn High lost their semi final to Trinity College Colac and left us playing the team that we had a tie with earlier in the day in the final.

While the girls entered the final with confidence, they knew they would match it with Trinity College and they knew from the earlier result that things would be tight. Number one girl Kripa Shrestha continued her unbeaten run in the final and proved herself to be the premier tennis player present on the day which was a fantastic effort! Two of the other singles sets came down to tie breakers in a sign of the evenness of the two teams. Cheshta Phulara managed to win her tie breaker and give us an important second rubber after the singles.

The state title came down to the two doubles rubbers with the two teams on two sets each and only one game separating the two teams. In the most important tennis match of their young careers, these four girls played inspired tennis to both take out their respective doubles matches easily and in doing so win a very rare state tennis title for the school.

Well done to the four girls on their great achievement and thank you to coach Carole Hooper who guided to the girls through all of the lead up rounds and to Team Manager Burt Daniels-Naim who supported the girls for the entire journey.

Greg Hoskin

(Coach for the day)

YEAR 8 GIRLS TABLE TENNIS: 3RD IN THE STATE

After winning the Regional Finals in convincing fashion last month, the McKinnon Year 8 Girls Table Tennis squad travelled to the Melbourne Sports & Aquatic Centre last week to take part in the State Finals. The competition was tough but our talented team of Alessia Frantzis (Year 8), Azumi Hosako (Year 8), Eliza Hackett-Smith (Year 8), Valeria Camacho Acevedo (Year 8), and Sophie Grenda (Year 8) managed to edge out Galen in their first round before disposing of Mary Mackillop and Gladstone Park in subsequent rounds to qualify for the semi-finals as group winner.

In the semi-final, they came up against the strong team of Balwyn High School. Despite an even start where the score was tied at 1-1 after the first two singles, by the end of the four single rubbers, the McKinnon girls found themselves behind 1-3. As a result, they needed to win the two remaining double rubbers to have a chance to advance. Despite a fine effort by the girls, they lost 2 games to 3 in both rubbers (losing by the narrowest of margin of 9-11 in some games), and were eliminated from the competition.

Since the other losing semi-finalist, Galen, lost to us during the group stage, McKinnon claimed the 3rd place overall in the State. A tremendous achievement for all involved. A special thank goes out to Mr Pantelios who managed the team during the preliminary phase earlier in the year and planted the seeds for success.

Sandy Law

Coach

YEAR 8 BOYS TABLE TENNIS INTO STATE FINALS

The McKinnon Year 8 Boys Table Tennis Team, consisting Kevin Zhou (Year 8), Kanato Sato (Year 8), Matthew Kwong (Year 8), Bastien Meric (Year 8) and Harsh Sharma (Year 9) (Assistant Coach), has won through to the State Finals after the recent victory at the Southern Metro Regional Finals which was played at Dandenong. The team won their pool in impressive fashion, beating the likes of Frankston HS and Narre Warren. In the regional final, the boys came up against Gleneagles SC which proved to be a tougher contest. But the boys managed to win through after defeating their opponents in the doubles.

Congratulations to the Year 8 Boys Table Tennis Team who will now represent the Southern Metro Region in the upcoming State Finals. Special thanks to Mr Pantelios who managed the team before the regional finals, as well as Harsh Sharma for being the assistant coach.

Sandy Law

Coach

GIRLS LEADERSHIP FORUM

On Wednesday 20 November, twelve Year 7 & 8 Girls set off to the newly renovated Junction Oval for a leadership programme run by Cricket Victoria. The day was a great success full of activities run by inspirational figures.

We had multiple panel discussions, where we were able to ask questions with Linley Frame (Olympian), Kelly Applebee (Ex Victorian and Australian Player), Elly Donald (Vic Womens player), Peter Siddle (Cricket Australia, Victorian team and Adelaide Strikers Big Bash player) and Bhavisha Devchand (WA player). We were lucky enough to get a jujitsu class with Shantelle Thompson (Olympian & World Title holder) who was also our MC for the day.

We learnt lots of important leadership skills such as the ability to face challenges instead of running away from them, but the most important message was to always give everything a go no matter how scared you are. We would like to thank Mrs Hooper and Cricket Victoria for an amazing day.

(Participants: Lani Hammam, Anika Karra, Matilda Brown, Hannah Foran, Ruhani Sabnani, Ananya Jha, Jasmine Parry, Niyati Brijesh, Nadya Mapitiya, Elizabeth Wharton, Diane Dixon and Aditi Patil)

Lani Hammam (Year 7) and Lizzie Wharton (Year 7)

2XU ELWOOD TRIATHLON

On Sunday 17 November, 17 students represented McKinnon at the 2XU Elwood Triathlon event. The event was the culmination of six weeks training as part of the sport program in Year 7 and 8.

Students needed to be at the beach by 6:30am Sunday morning to check in and get mentally ready for the 150m swim, 7km ride and 1.2km run.

It was a freezing cold morning and just as the event was starting the wind and rain increased, making the conditions brutal for the swim in almost two metre swells. All our students participated really well, and despite the conditions really enjoyed the event.

Some excellent results from the day were:

- Annabelle Sakurai (Year 8) finishing in 6th position in her category

- Matthew Day (Year 9), Will Green and Saksham Singh finishing 6th in the teams event.

- Tilde Christrup (Year 8) and Monique Andjelic (Year 9) who both finished in the Top 10 for their age category.

An awesome achievement in just the second year that McKinnon has sent a team in the triathlon event.

Tim Blackwood

Head of Physical Education and Sport

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