SSP NEWS

Netball 

The highlight of the week has been our specialist area sessions and welcoming Caitlin Thwaites into the Specialist Netball Program Session. Caitlin is a World Champion, a Commonwealth Games Champion and Gold Medallist as well as a Melbourne Vixens Premiership Player in a distinguished career. Caitlin is a part of the current Melbourne Vixens specialist coaching group in her area of Goaling. We are so fortunate to have Caitlin working with the attacking group imparting her knowledge and experience. The session was also complemented by Defensive specialist work with Head Coach, Ainsley Corrigan and Assistant Coach and Australian 19&U Squad Member, Charli Nicol. The player athletes worked in small, focused groups and it was awesome to see them soaking up the information and putting it into action during Match Play under the watchful eye of Caitlin, Ainsley and Susan.

In the gym, our leader Charlie Perks has commenced retesting our student athletes in strength testing with some significant improvements. A great reflection of the program and importantly the commitment and dedication of the group.

Trials for our incoming Year 7 intake for 2024 have commenced and it has been fantastic to see the enthusiasm and depth of the next generation of potential Specialist Netball Program athletes. The player athletes were put through agility, ball work, skill assessments and match play rounds over a 2 trial period.

We rounded out our nutrition focus with a presentation from Nutritionist Sam Coppinger who works with many elite sporting teams on maximising their potential through correct intake of food and hydration to aid fuelling, recovery and repair. There was much to take away for all, thanks to Nick Richardson for organising the event.

In Education, Junior groups have commenced presenting their slide shows covering countries that competed in the recent Netball World Cup held in Cape Town, South Africa. They will progress to analysing key players and their impact on court and style of play. The Intermediate/Senior students are undertaking this as individuals. This analysis allows the learning of different styles of netball played globally by both teams and individuals and the introduction of performance analysis skills used in High Performance teams.

Whilst on court and in the classroom, students have been working hard. This week also presented a reminder of the privilege of being in a Specialist Sports Program and the importance of the significance of the Student Athlete Agreement, its values, expectations and how it drives the standards by which we operate and how we represent the Specialist Netball Program and WHC. It drives our choices and respect for ourselves and those involved in the program and promotes accountability and responsibility. These are all important habits for success in sport and life. 

Have a great week!

Stacey Dodds, Head Coach

Football

Exciting news from the AFL Specialist Sport Program the Senior Girls and the Intermediate Boys are through to the State Grand Finals next week.  These matches will be played at Tony Sheehan Oval, Latrobe University, Bundoora on Wednesday and Thursday.

We have been inundated with students this week trialling for places in the SSP for year 7 2024.  Seventy bright young footballers puffed their way through the AFL trials, good luck to everyone.

Susie Robinson, AFL Program Coordinator

Basketball

Term 3 has been packed with lots of tournaments for our basketball program. We are so proud of the way our students have gone out and represented Western Heights with pride. 

At the SSV level our year 7 girls and year 8 boys & girls won the local region and progressed on to the Western Metro Region. Our year 7 boys narrowly missed out. We absolutely loved seeing our year 7s compete in their first tournament as Western Heights students, they all did incredibly well.

Our senior teams competed at the Western Metropolitan Region tournament where both teams had a dominant day making it to the grand final. It was great to see our Senior Boys come away winners and progress on to state. For some of our year 12 girls this was one of the last tournaments we will see them play representing Western Heights, it’s amazing to see how far they have come. 

At the Basketball Victoria Champions’ Cup level, we had 5 out of our 6 teams who entered progress on to the Elite 8. Unfortunately our senior boys team just missed out, but congratulations to our U15 girls & boys, our two U17 boys teams, and our U19 girls team. We can’t wait to see them play at the Elite 8 tournaments next week where they will go up against the best. 

Best of luck to Jack McGough who will be off to school nationals next week to represent Victoria. We know he will do great! 

We’d like to wish all of our students who are competing in the VJBL finals starting this Friday the best of luck.

We’d also like to congratulate two of our coaches who have been nominated for some Big V awards for the 2023 season. Kaleb Sclater has been nominated for coach of the year for the Youth Championship Women. Amanda Paschal has been nominated for both defensive player of year AND all star five/MVP for the championship women. Well done! 

Aimie Rocci, Basketball Program Coach 

Basketball Incursion

The Western Heights Basketball program were fortunate enough to have 2-time NBL Championship player Dejan Vasiljevic speak to them about work ethic, perseverance and resilience. DJ has just signed with NBA club Washington Wizards.  

Lucas Wintels, Year 9