St Mary’s polo girls make big splash
KES: The unstoppable force on the cricket scene this year, the King Edward VII School First XI has been dominating the Johnny Waite Knock-out competition.
DEFENDING champions, King Edward VII School First XI cricket side, once again proved their worth after convincing victories against Queens High School, Fourways High School and Maragon Private School in the Johnny Waite Knock-out Competition over the past month.
Captain Bryce Parsons and Obakeng Maila have been on a path of destruction with the ball, taking wickets for fun since the new cricket season commenced.
KES were matched up in a pool against Maragon, Queens, Fourways and Redhill School; as the team’s positions were predetermined dependant on where they finished last season.
Top seeded KES got their campaign off brilliantly, beating Queens by 94 KING Edward VII School (KES) swimmer Joshua Zietsman took home five medals after an impressive showing at the OR Tambo/soncini Social Cohesion Games in Germiston this past weekend. Joshua, 15, excelled for Team Ekhuruleni, claiming gold in the 50m butterfly and 200m freestyle, silver in the 100m and 50m freestyle, and bronze in the 50m backstroke. Joshua was also selected to represent the Eastern Gauteng Aquatics U15 water polo side, alongside KES teammates Bryce Bolton, Rhys Pienaar, Trent Dickson and Tiago Correira.
Thousands of athletes from Gauteng, and one team from Italy, competed at the games, held at the Germiston Stadium. The Gauteng Department of Sports, Arts, Culture and Recreation staged the games in honour of Tambo and Italian Giuseppe Soncini, their friendship and
runs in the first round on October 17, but things would only get better from here on out for the men from Houghton.
KES next faced Fourways High on October 24, dismissing Fourways for a dismal 33 runs. KES quickly surpassed that total for a 10-wicket victory and clinch their second scalp of the competition. A week later, and the KES side has managed to get even better, as 11 runs and 7.2 overs later, Maragon would become the third side to fall to KES. Another 10-wicket walk over for KES who now move on to Redhill who they will face in the New Year.
After these three impressive group stage victories show KES are favourites to retain their Johnny Waite Knock-out competition trophy. the contribution they made during the struggle against apartheid.
● See pages 4 and 5 LAST weekend, 22 schools participated in the annual junior inter-high tennis tournament which was held at various venues across Johannesburg. This event is specifically for tennis players in grades 9 and 10. WATER polo teams from St Mary’s School, Waverley, participated in the Under-13 St Stithians Invitational, U14 Roedean Water Polo Tournament and the first team St Stithians Invitational.
All three tournaments hosted 20 water polo playing schools from across the country.
The U13 St Mary’s first team made huge waves in the water, scooping third place in the tournament, after coming 13th last year.
The first team came second in their pool game matches, which led them to a showdown with Eastern Cape’s Clarendon High School for Girls in a play-off to get to the quarter-finals.
They beat Clarendon 4-3 and advanced through to play Roedean School (SA).
They beat Roedean in a very tense but exciting match where they overcame their opponents by two solid goals in the last two minutes.
St Mary’s lost to Pearson High School, another school from the Eastern Cape, in the semi-final and were matched to play Reddam House, Cape Town, in the bronze medal match.
This game turned out to be another thrilling close affair, leading to both of the teams going into a penalty shootout and St Mary’s coming up tops, winning 7-5.
Two of St Mary’s players, Kiara Walsh and Kayleigh Boere, were selected for the coveted tournament’s All Star team.
The team from St Mary’s School in Waverley, beat the Helpmekaar Kollege team in the final to clinch the title. Northcliff High School beat St Andrew’s School for Girls to take third place.