Christmas Term 2023 - Week 2 Sports Report

Hockey – Sherborne Festival

U18s

Following a very productive and progressive four day pre-season camp for the U18 and U16 squads, a youthful 1st XI featuring 8 debutants travelled to Sherborne on Saturday for their annual invitational tournament.

In sweltering hot conditions more akin to lounging by the pool than running around a hockey pitch, the team coped fantastically well; ensuring their hydration levels remained high throughout, and getting in the shade in between matches.

The tournament saw 10 teams in two pools of five compete in 8 minute each way games. We drew 0-0 with host Sherborne and again with KES Bath, despite some decent goalbound efforts being thwarted by decent goalkeeping. We trailed 0-1 to Taunton before a quick riposte saw Tara Hogan add the final touch to a flowing team move to level things at 1-1. More obstinate goalkeeping saw us unable to grab a winner in such a shirt time frame. With other teams in the pool taking points off each other, we were unable to progress, despite our final game v Warminster resulting in a resounding 5-0 victory. Poppy White scored twice and laid on another, Georgia Kenny also bagged a brace and Maya Doubleday also netted.

A useful exercise for the squad to gel, with the opportunity to get some game play against decent opposition early in the season.

This week sees the first block of the term versus KES Southampton

U15s

U15A Sherborne Invitational

Blundell’s 2-0

Sherborne 0-2

KES Bath 0-0

Taunton 0-2

This first tournament is always a very fast baptism of fire to the start of the hockey season, as well as playing on the hottest day of the year. The girls have new coaches, potentially some new positions and we had little time training together as a team beforehand. With all of this in their head the naturally went into this tournament feeling a little nervous but came out the gates at full speed against Blundell’s. We snuck the first goal out of nowhere, possession was all Blundell’s for the first 4 minutes, but they gave the ball away in the middle and we took advantage. Second goal was sheer determination from Poppy Young, on her own in front of goal and managed to slot it home. This led the girls to feel relaxed for the second match, which can always go two ways! We started on slowly and not aggressive enough allowing Sherborne to break through early on. Second half we were much better, but just had a little too much catching up to do. KES Bath, was an odd game. We had all the possession, in their D for most of the 16 minutes, but just couldn’t convert – credit to their goal keep who also made a lot of saves. The final pool match, there was a little pressure, as due to the other results we had to win in, to go through to the semi-final stage. The girls were up for it! We started very well but allowed Taunton to drift through the middle and get an early goal, followed a fantastic second goal on the backhand. The girls continued to work hard and didn’t let up.

Mr Hooker and I came away with lots of positives from what we saw and things that we are excited to work on. Looking forward to the week ahead.

Martial Arts

Congratulations to Fourth Form pupil Aaron Blackkman on his fantastic achievement representing Team GB over the summer in the 2023 World Martial Arts Championships in Florida. Although Aaron has represented Wales a number of times, this was his first foray into international competition with Team GB.

Aaron returned as the U15s World Champion and gold medallist in Continuous Sparring, the silver medallist in Points Sparring, and the silver medallist in Kumite (Japanese Sparring). As a 14 year old and still only at purple belt level, he did exceptionally well given there was quite a number of competitors in each of his categories.

We congratulate Aaron and wish him the very best of luck in future competitions!

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