North Island Secondary School Track and Field Championships 31 March 2012
This year the North Island Secondary School Track and Field Championships were held in Tauranga on the weekend of 31st March and 1st April. This athletics meeting represents the end of a long track and field season that started for many of our athletes with the first local cub meet in October.
Thirteen of our St Paul’s students had earned the right to represent Waikato Bay of Plenty at this event and once again they performed with distinction.
James Hunt was probably the stand out performer with two individual 1st place finishes in the senior boys 110m hurdles and open boys 300m hurdles. He was also a member of the victorious Waikato Bay of Plenty 4 x 400m relay team.
Relay success was experienced by Michael Gutry and Laura McKenna in the 4 x 100m relays as their senior teams were victorious also. Michael also placed third in the senior boys 200m final and 4th in the 100m final. Laura was 7th in the senior girls 100 final.
Ryan Ballantyne was also part of a 4 x 100m relay team that placed 3rd in the junior boys and he also did well to place 8th in the 800m final.
Scott Hilliar had another weekend of quality running where he placed 2nd in both the senior boys 800m and 1500m. In the 1500m final it required a record breaking performance by the athlete from Wellington to beat Scott, as both the winner and Scott went under the old north island record by over two seconds.
In the senior boys 400m final Jonty Rae dead heated for 2nd place and also just missed going under 50 seconds for the first time.
Katelyn Matthews lowered her school record in the senior girls 800m when placing 4th in a personal best time of 2 minutes and eleven seconds.
Tom Smith easily qualified for the intermediate boys 200m final but in the process aggravated a knee injury which saw him being unable to take his place in the final.
Jackson Morgan narrowly missed out on a top three placing in finishing 4th in the junior boys shot put and Rebecca Foster did well to place 6th in the senior girls 400m final.
Jack Tatton also had a successful weekend with personal best performances in the senior boys 3000m and open boys 2000m steeplechase.
To round out the performance of the team Ezra Berridge and Jack Davies both ran creditably in the intermediate and junior boys 3000m respectively.
NZSS Track and Field Championships - December 2011
Over the weekend of December 10th and 11th 2011 nineteen students from St Paul’s competed at the New Zealand Secondary Schools Track and Field and Road Championships. This event is the pinnacle of secondary school athletics competition with close to 1500 students involved.
The athletes compete in either the boys or girls junior or senior age group in track and field and there is an additional Year 9 age group for those competing on the road.
Conditions over the weekend were perfect and the number of personal bests achieved by our athletes was a reflection of this, and of the hard work and dedication to training they had made in the months leading up to the event.
The first medal to be won was by Blake Gordon in the junior boys 200m in a dominant performance, which saw him winning by at least 8 meters in a personal best time of 22. 24 seconds. This time would have been good enough to see him reach the senior boys final.
The medal tally was added to significantly by the performance of the relay teams where one gold, two silver and two bronze medals were earned. The team of Teagan Voykovich, Rebecca Foster, Katelyn Matthews and Ally French ran brilliantly to win gold in the senior girls 4 x 400 relay; this same quartet had also combined 40 minutes earlier to place 6th in the final of the 4 x 100m relay. The junior boys 4 x 100 relay team of Logan Jakes, Blake Gordon, Tom Smith and Joel Taylor then combined to finish second by 3 hundredths of a second to Palmerston North Boys High School in their final. Blake, Tom and Joel were back on the track with Danyon Fernando not long after their silver medal effort to run in the junior boys 4 x 400m relay. By this stage there were some very weary legs but they battled hard for a well-earned third place, to pick up the team’s first bronze medal. The senior boys 4 x 100m relay team of James Hunt, Michael Gutry, Sean Henley- Smith and Bennet Rogers then demonstrated the importance of slick baton changing by earning themselves a bronze medal. James, Bennet and Michael where then joined by Scott Hilliar in the senior boys 4 x 400m relay and this team then topped off a fantastic overall relay performance with an outstanding second placing on the back of gutsy efforts by each member of the team.
The success of the St Paul’s team can’t only be measured in the medals earned alone as there were also two school records broken by Bennet Rogers and Katelyn Matthews. Bennet’s time in his semi-final of the senior boys 400m of 50.16 seconds is an intermediate boys record because of his age and Katelyn broke the senior girls 800m record when placing 5th in her final in a time of 2 minutes 15.97 seconds.
A number of other students added to the success of the team by reaching a final and in a number of cases also running personal bests at some point in the competition. The following students achieved this distinction:
• James Hunt 4th Open Boys 300m Hurdles (personal best)
• Scott Hilliar 5th Senior Boys 800m (personal best)
• Tom Smith 5th Junior Boys 200m
• Michael Gutry 7th Senior Boys 200m
• James Mason 7th Open Boys 2000m Steeplechase (personal best)
• Ally French 8th Senior Girls 200m (personal best)
• Bennet Rogers Senior Boys 400m (personal best)
The following students didn’t quite make it to finals on the track but did run personal bests along the way:
• Joel Taylor Junior Boys 400m
• Teagan Voykovich Senior Girls 400m
• Danyon Fernando Junior Boys 1500m
• Rebecca Foster Senior Girls 400m
In a fantastic summary of the performance on the track; all students who competed on the track either earned a relay medal or made a final of the event they entered.
Four boys also competed in the road race on a course that involved running on the concourse between the railway station and Westpac Trust Stadium (The Cake Tin) and completing circuits inside the stadium itself. Jack Davies and Seton Mason both acquitted themselves well in the Year 9 race with Jack doing particularly well in placing 17th in a field of 101 runners. Ezra Berridge was running well in the junior boys race but a severe case of stitch put paid to his chances in the middle stages of the race, but he did not give up and came home very strongly once he managed to shake of its affects. Jack Tatton had one of the tougher tasks of the weekend in racing over 6km in the senior boys race but he performed very well to finish mid field, covering the distance in 22 minutes.
At all times over the weekend of competition the team were a credit to the school and with all but two of the team returning next year there is the promise of more success to come from this group of talented but dedicated athletes.