Secondary Sport
Basketball
Round 3 of Redlands Basketball was busy with 29 of our teams having home games. Our A Boys played against St Pius A Boys. The 14A Boys and 17A Boys both had great wins and are really starting to work well together on the court. A great fight from our other A teams showed that they can play with some of the top Division 1 schools. The B and C Boys teams both played against St Pius at NBISC and finished with four out of the five wins in the B line and a clean sweep for the C line who dominated on the day. The Redlands Open Blue and Open Gold teams played off against each other, with the gold team winning by 3 points in what was a great match-up. The 17Ds had a 16 point win over SACS and the 14D and 13D teams had a win and a loss respectively against St Augustine’s. The 14E and 14F teams both played hard but came up short against Oakhill and St Spyridon.
Again, there were some great results in the Girls competition, with the 1sts continuing their undefeated streak and having a massive win over the SACS 1sts. The 2nds were playing SACS 2nds and finished with a 13 point win. The Redlands 3 Girls also continued their undefeated streak with a huge win over Oakhill. The Redlands 4 girls lost by nine points in a hard-fought game. Redlands 5 had a fantastic win over Barker College, as did the Junior B Girls. The Junior As had a very tough match-up this week with the Barker Junior A side, the two teams traded basket for basket throughout the first half, however, in the second half Barker gained momentum and created a lead that was too big to get back. The Junior Cs had a close match up against SACS, but went down by two points at the final siren.
Sailing
Last Saturday our Sailing program hosted the Redlands Sailing Cup with teams from Redlands, Riverview, Cranbrook and Wenona in attendance. The regatta was held in both Pacer dinghies and Elliott 7s keelboats with 16 teams competing in both divisions.
Racing began in a light westerly breeze that quickly separated the two fleets and highlighted the teams’ tactical skills. With a reasonably long course, there were many opportunities for sailors to find different shifts to extend their leads or overtake competitors stuck in a lull.
In the Elliott 7s, Oliver Noakes and Alissa Braden skippered the two Redlands boats and quickly separated from the two Cranbrook teams after the slow pre-start. Oliver and his team capitalised on a shift on the right-hand side of the course and were able to lead the race from start to finish. Alissa’s team struggled on the first upwind to connect the different breeze patches, however, were able to quickly set an asymmetrical spinnaker at the top mark and catch up to Oliver’s team, finishing second.
In the Pacers, all six of our boats had good starts, however, three teams got stuck underneath the fleet and were forced in a lull on the left-hand side of the course. Jameson Prescott and Will Wickham quickly picked up on the shift and managed to tack into clean air on the right-hand side of the course and stay in touch with the leading Riverview boat around the first mark. On the first downwind, the breeze consolidated the fleet again and Jameson and Will managed to overtake the Riverview boat on the next upwind leg and ultimately won the race.
After the first race, the breeze became extremely light and the race committee had to postpone racing until the southerly breeze arrived. The following two races tested the sailor’s ability to perform in strong wind conditions and a reasonable sea-state with rolling waves across the course.
In the Elliott 7s, Alissa and her team kept calm in the windier conditions and were one of the fastest boats on the down-winds. Oliver Summons and his team also demonstrated their heavy-wind sailing skills, jumping on an Elliott 7s for the second race. Both teams had strong starts and initially led out to the left-hand side of the course, however, they were held out by the two Cranbrook teams and unable to find a wind shift to overtake them. In the third race, Oliver Noakes and his team switched back onto an Elliott 7 and quickly adjusted to the stronger breeze. The third race was the final race for the day and both Alissa and Oliver’s teams sailed extremely well in the conditions and had some great moments surfing waves on the downwinds.
In the Pacers, the nine teams initially struggled in the stronger breeze and rolling waves and the overall placing shuffled significantly during the final two races. In the second race, the Redlands sailors had a superb race, capitalising on their fast upwind speed and took 1st, 2nd, 3rd, 5th and 6th across the line. However, the third and final race of the day was the most interesting to watch with a reasonably even start and consistent but strong breeze across the entire course. On the first two legs of the race Jameson and Will, Gianni Watson and Alex Gibbs and Zac Nisbet and Dasha Sychova held onto the podium positions with two Riverview boats trying desperately to overtake our sailors. It was not until the final top mark and downwind that the Riverview boats were able to sneak through and overtake two of our teams whilst surfing down the front of the rolling waves on the course. Our top three teams placed 3rd, 5th and 6th in this race with only a few seconds between the first and sixth boat across the line.
Overall, Redlands placed first in both the Elliott 7s and Pacer divisions and won the Redlands Sailing Cup 2020 with the lowest combined score. A special congratulations to Jameson Prescott and Will Wickham who won the points score on count-back after being tied on six points with the winning Riverview boat. Congratulations also to Alissa Braden, Lucy Baird, Sienna Wessels, Cleophe Eliatamby and Thea Scown who placed second in the Elliott 7s division and were only one point behind the winning boat. All the sailors who competed at the regatta performed exceptionally well and have set the program up for success at the upcoming regattas in 2021.
Swimming
In Term 1 2021, Redlands will once again be offering a Swimming Squad program for all interested Secondary School students. The program will run for six weeks on Friday afternoon, ideally, students will attend all six sessions.
The program is for all students who would like to improve their swimming and build more confidence when it comes to competing at the Redlands Swimming Carnival.
Venue: Manly Andrew Boy Charlton Aquatic Centre, Kenneth Rd, North Manly
Swim School: Manly Andrew Boy Charlton Aquatic Centre Swim School
Dates: 6 Fridays in Term 1 – 29/1/20, 5/2/20, 12/2/20, 19/2/20, 26/2/20, 5/3/20
Time: 4.00-5.00pm
Transport: Students will be transported by bus to and from the venue. The bus will leave Redlands Senior Campus, Military Rd (school side) at 3.30pm and will return at approximately 5.30pm. Students may be collected from the pool at 5.00pm. Students must be collected by the time the bus departs at 5.10pm or they will be required to catch the bus back to school.
Please register here.
Tennis
Round 4 of the Summer NSTA Tennis competition was pleasing to see Redlands students show persistence within their matches with plenty of games across the day getting to deuce and plenty of sets being won or almost won after fighting back from a couple of games down. This is a quality that is important in a sport where there is an opportunity at every point to change the direction of the game, the set and the match. Tennis is played on such fine margins that it is often just a single point at a pivotal moment that determines the outcome of a match.
Just a friendly reminder, please aim to arrive 15 minutes before your scheduled start time to ensure there is sufficient time for a warm-up and matches can start on time, 8.00am and 10.00am. If students are sick or injured and cannot attend training, please email Eliza Peirce. If students are sick and rostered to play on Saturday, please email Eliza Peirce before 12.00pm on the Friday to ensure a replacement can be found and all sets can be completed.
The COVID Safety Protocols for Tennis have not changed for Round 5. The one spectator rule at all NSTA Tennis venues remains in place. The Redlands COVID Sports Protocols can be found on Redlands Pulse. All wet weather updates can be found on Twitter @RedlandsSport.
Touch Football
We had another cracking day out at Macquarie University, with a number of teams walking away with some hard fought wins. Our 1sts, unfortunately, had a tough match against Barker 1sts, however looked very impressive throughout the second half. Our 2nd and 3rds played each other which is always a tough battle, with the 2nds taking the game 3-2. Our 4ths travelled out to St Paul’s Grammar School, looking to improve, and certainly gave SPGS a run for their money, going down in another close game 2-3. Our Junior As beat Barker 8-4 with the girls really looking strong for the back end of the Term 4 season. The Jnr Bs had a good win against St Pauls. The Junior C and Ds had a great turn out in their internal match, with both teams showing signs of improvement, and despite the loss, our Junior Es are learning a lot and enjoying each week they play.
“Experience is not the best teacher. If it was then as everybody got older they would get better. I know a lot of people getting older but they’re not getting better. It’s not the experience that gets people better, it’s evaluating that experience. Reflection turns experience into insight!” John Maxwell
Mr Tom Kindred
Head of Secondary School Sport
sports@redlands.nsw.edu.au
All Sports contacts can be found on Redlands Pulse.
