Sport

Naitanui Academy: Year 7s train the nest down

This week the Year 7s in Physical Education class were lucky enough participate in a special Nic Naitanui Academy training session. The groups were put through their paces through former West Coast Eagles legend Steve Malaxos, current AFLW Ruckman Parris Laurie and game development officer Chris Brown. The group was eased into the session with a productive warm up before diving head first into some ball work skills. Working up and down the oval the students honed their kicking, handballing and decision-making skills, which were the key pillars of their previous lessons that took place at school over the last couple of weeks. After completing these skill drills the students finished off the session with a game. 

It was great to see the students working on moving the ball into space, through the midfield and into the attacking arc, culminating in many goals. A big thanks must go out to the West Coast Eagles and Nic Naitanui Academy for coming to the school and helping our students learn many a lessons about football both on and off the field.

SSWA Junior Basketball Tournaments

Perseverance was the major theme for this year’s SSWA Junior Boys and Girls (Year 8/9) basketball tournament. The tournament took place on Monday, 2 August where the boys ended the carnival with 3 wins and 3 losses and the girls 2 wins and 3 loses. A never say die attitude from the beginning of the tournament to the end of the tournament was evident.

The boys team struggled to start games, however, when the defensive pressure was increased the team played out second halves strongly. Countless of the boys showed their ability to improve game to game and to accept the challenge ahead. Coach Colin Driscoll spoke about the team striving to continue to improve for their transition into senior school basketball and to keep up their competitive mindset.

The girls team was a mixture of youth and leadership. The girls faced some competitive teams early and got an understanding of the level of competition they will face in the future. Once the girls settled and began to play patient basketball they started working as a unit and began to get rewarded on the scoreboard. Coach Mr Houwen spoke about how impressed he was with the girl’s commitment to the team and playing team like basketball. Most impressive of all the sportsmanship each girl displayed both on and off the court.

Overall the carnival was a great learning opportunity for students and has set them up with an understanding of the basketball that awaits them. I very much look forward to seeing how far this group of students can go.

Mr Corey Houwen

(Health and Physical Education Teacher)