SPORT Water Polo
College started the year with a good opportunity to continue on from last year’s results, going into the 2019 Canterbury competition pretty confident after losing last year’s senior competition on countback. College played five games, winning four, and narrowly losing to a very slick St Bede’s College team by one point in the Canterbury final. This was repeated in the South Island secondary schools’ competition, where we were confident going into the final against St Bede’s, but never managed to get into second gear and went down to the deserving winners 6–14. We scored 84 goals for with 34 against. The senior team was made
up of boys who had played together for the past few years, with the backbone of the team centred around Louis Clark. This year a group of younger players stepped up, including Isaac Aitken, Tom Thyne, Sam Chittock, Jacob Clements, Harry Greenwood, Ben Cornell, Moe Gath, Finn Brokenshire, and Mitchell Cox. The team was coached by a former Hungarian player Arpi Babay, who lifted the boys’ skill level further than had been achieved in previous years. The junior team started the Term 4 competition on a positive note, with three boys from the senior team making an impact immediately. Captain Jacob Clements, alongside Tom Thyne, Luke Moore, Sam
Chittock and Alex McEwan proving to be strong players in the pool. A busy few days for the boys started late on Thursday night, with a 4th place in the Canterbury tournament after losing to Burnside High School (who had just won the Junior secondary school title) in a double penalty shoot-out. It would be remiss to single out individual players, but Jacob Clements and Tom Thyne were outstanding throughout the season, with a supporting cast composed of Jack Thelning, Koen Jager, Guy Greening and James Drury. Special mention should go to Louis Clark, who made the 2019 New Zealand water polo schoolboys’ team
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Register 2019 Sport
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