Look inside your Daily News today for the weekly schools sports page. It has a round-up of school sport played in KwaZulu-Natal during the past week and also a profile on the week’s School Sports Hero.
CLOSE to 80 KwaZulu-Natal girls’ high schools hockey teams have been preparing seriously for this year’s SPAR KZN School Girls’Hockey Challenge since the beginning of term.
The tournament gets under way on Saturday, February 27, with the first regional qualifying tournament for Northern KZN schools hosted by St Dominic’s College in Newcastle with the last qualifier for the Highway Region at Thomas More College on May 15.
There are 10 regional tournaments all together taking in all parts of the province and spanning eight weekends to determine the 20 schools that will contest the two-day Grand Finals on July 23-24 to be hosted by St Mary’s DSG at Kloof for the sixth year in succession.
This year sees an exciting and innovative introduction to the tournament with Varsity College joining forces with SPAR and offering one fortunate hockey player a bursary to further her studies at the institution.
Varsity College’s national sports manager, Carole Adam, made the announcement adding that the bursary winner would get the opportunity to study for a quality IIE Higher Education Qualification through the College and also get to play premier division hockey in Durban for the Varsity College Hockey Club.
SPAR Managing Director, Rob Philipson, said: “Heading into the sixth year of the tournament, we feel very affirmed at the success of our tournament which has developed into one of the highlights on the schools’ sports calendar. Due to its success the tournament has spilled across the borders into other provinces.”
The full 2016 SPAR KZN Schoolgirls Hockey Challenge Programme is:
27 February: Northern KZN Region
(Hosts: St Dominic’s at Newcastle) 12 March: PMB Central
(Pietermaritzburg GHS) 12 March: PMB North (St Anne’s
College at AB Jackson) 13 March: DBN Central (Maris Stella
at 3 Schools Trust, Glenwood) 9 April: DBN South (Kingsway HS at
3 Schools Trust) 10 April: DBN North (Danville Park
HS at Durban North) 16 April: Southern KZN Region(St
Patrick’s at Kokstad) 7 May: KZN North Coast (Grantleigh
at Richard’s Bay) 14 May: Umvoti, uThukela and Umzinyathi Region (Hermannsburg German School) 15 May: Highway (Thomas More
College) 23/24 July: Grand Finals at St Mary’s
DSG, Kloof