Rowville District Winter Sports

Well done to all our Year 5 and 6 students who put in a strong effort at the Rowville District Winter Sports competition. It was amazing to see the sportsmanship, teamwork and determination to win across all the 5 different sports.

Congratulations to our AFL Boys team and Soccer Girls teams who both came out victorious and premiers at the District competition. We are extremely proud of them and wish to acknowledge the cooperation and courage shown on the field from both teams. In addition, congratulations to our Girl’s Tee Ball team who were second place (Runners Up) after an almost undefeated stint over the two day competition.

We wish especially to thank our parent helpers as coaches and runners over the two day competition. Your encouragement, guidance and instil of positive sporting values have allowed our students to not only be successful on the field but have a positive outlook on their performance all round.

In next week’s newsletter, our team captains will provide a short recap of each team’s successes and performance over the two day competition. There will be more photos of our team’s in next week's newsletter as well.

ST SIMON TEAM UNIFORMS:

If your child has taken home a St Simon tem jersey and shorts last Friday after Winter Sports, we ask the uniform to be washed and returned to the school office or directly to Mr Karl Camerino as soon as possible.

DIVISION WINTER SPORT ADVANCEMENT

We ask all parents of children in the AfL Boys, Soccer Girls and Tee Ball Girls teams to note the following Division competition dates below. Operoo permission forms will be sent out to all parents of these teams with information about each Division event shortly.

Please note that the Knox Division Tee Ball Championships date is the same day as the District Senior Basketball competition. Parents will be informed through the Operoo form indicating how the school will approach this Division event.

Knox Division AFL Girls Championships

On Thursday 8th June, 21 enthusiastic Year 5 and 6 girls took the field at Kings Park to compete at the Knox Division AFL Girls Championships. With high spirits and a steering address from their mentoring coach, George, the girls went into their first game pumped and ready as a united team. Much of the ball in the first game went to ground and was hard to get out of the pack. The girls did their best to kick one goal which was answered back quickly. At the end of the game, our girls came just short losing by just a point. Although, this setback did not deter them but only made them stronger for the next two round robin games.

In the next two games, the girls stayed on their feet to shrug the strong tackles and kept on the offensive. There were some spectacular marks during these games, some of the girls were very proud of themselves kicking their first ever competition goal. In these two games, the girls comfortably won by a good margin which lifted their hopes to play in a Top 8 final.

During the break in the day, there were two competitions for players to win prizes. Madeleine Jayasuriya entered into the long kick competition. Her kick was a big old torpedo but only just short of the longest kicker from another school. Aarya Shundravel took part in the 50 metre footy sprint and came second amongst 15 other girls. She seemed very proud to win a prize from this half time competition.

After the break, the girls recomposed themselves for their first top 8 finals match, going in as if it was ‘just another game’. On a mud pit of a field, the physicality and tackling was ferocious with many girls keeping the pressure within our forward 50. Overall, their first game was a victory by 2 goals.

The next game would be against an old rival from our first round robin games. The work rate, effort, and competitive spirit was displayed in abundance, especially with our on ball midfielders Alyssa, Aarya, Madeleine and Maddison during this game. Despite our girls' long kicks and many shots towards goal, the team wasn’t able to grab a win.

This led the girls to fight it out for third or fourth place against Lysterfield. All the girls mustered up their strength to make one last push to win their last game. There was some good teamwork in this game with our girl kicking towards open players. However, they were outdone two goals to one leaving us fourth overall amongst 15 other schools in the Knox competition.

With this outcome, there was the resounding consensus from the girls all stating how much fun they had tackling and playing throughout the day. All girls were fantastic ambassadors for St Simon’s, showing fabolous sportsmanship. I am sure they were keen to have a nice hot shower to clean the mud that covered them.

It was great to see so many spectating St Simon parents supporting the team which made a great atmosphere amongst our school cheering group. Thank you to our parent coach, George whose positive encouragement and guidance throughout the day made it enjoyable for our girls. We wish to acknowledge and thank Rachel for supplying the drink holders for our girls. Hopefully our girls' experience has led them to keep up their football endeavours.

Ivana Dabb	Anita Hogan	Kannon Veltman	Toby Padgham
Zoe Portoglou	Ebony Bartlett	Jack Creen	Aloysius James
Grace Battle

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