As a member of the 24 strong Girls Sport Victoria (GSV) competition, St Catherine’s School has had the opportunity to be involved in an extensive range of sports. Whether it is for their love of the sport, friendship, to challenge themselves or to ensure they strike a balance between their academic learning and co-curricular pursuits, the St Catherine’s Sports program offers our students the opportunity to choose from a range of sports and be immersed in what is a very positive sporting culture.

This year, the Sport Department theme, led by Sport Captains Juliet Grant and Eleanor Millear, was about peer empowerment. This established positive sporting environments that stimulated all members to pursue a greater sense of self to best contribute towards their team. Evidence of this was clear as 2018 proved to be another successful year of sport for St Catherine’s School.

Through GSV Weekly Sport, St Catherine’s students are encouraged to sample new sports as a means of forging relationships and pathways to help build a long lasting affiliation with sport and an active lifestyle. In 2018, our students enjoyed their participation in a wide range of sports and produced a number of highlights, making GSV finals in the following sports:

  • Intermediate ‘A’ & ‘B’ Tennis
  • Intermediate ‘A’ Basketball
  • Junior ‘A’ Hockey
  • Junior ‘A’ Waterpolo
  • Junior ‘D’ Netball
  • Junior ‘C’ Basketball
  • Junior ‘B’ & ‘C’ Tennis

Within the Weekly Sport Program, identifying positive peer role models to cultivate affiliation and develop a shared sense of belonging and purpose across each team was a primary aim of the program.

This was evident within our Junior Hockey Squad, where role models and Victorian Hockey representatives Samantha Love (Year 7) and Lucy Dunlop (Year 7) led their peers through their ability to set a professional standard for the process required towards improvement in Hockey. Setting a peer led team standard empowered their junior teammates to better learn and grow within the sport.

Lucy Dunlop (Year 7) GSV JNR Hockey.

Within our Intermediate Tennis squad, team captains Lucy Campbell (Year 9) and Millie Fraser-Smith (Year 10) did an outstanding job in motivating their teammates to contribute towards their squad’s common goal of making it through to finals at Melbourne Park. The girls’ enthusiasm and passion for representing St Catherine’s as a team saw some outstanding tennis played by all team members across the season and throughout finals. This resulted in a B Grade Premiership win and narrow loss in the A Grade by a single game in a tie breaking final set play-off.

GSV Intermediate Tennis Team.

The aspirational effect of role modelling was evident within our Water Polo program. Senior role models and GSV Water Polo representatives Thalia Barbayannis (Year 10) and Romilly Walker (Year 10) paved the way to a greater sense of drive and ambition within the junior program. This scaffolding effect provided confidence in students’ ability and performance to strive for success. This fostered an undefeated GSV season and a first seed in GSV finals for the junior team.

Chloe Nevins (Year 7) GSV Junior Waterpolo.

In the GSV Carnival Sports Program, there was strong team emphasis placed on values of effort, self-confidence and the contribution one could make towards the team around them. Driven by these values, our Track and Field team made it through to the GSV Division 1 Championships for the third consecutive year and our Swim Team resurged to once again qualify through to the Division 1 Championships. On the track, outstanding contributions were made by Olivia Nigido-Scott (Year 8) who broke the GSV Shot Put record, along with winning the Discus and Javelin. Juliet Grant (Year 12) achieved 2nd place in the 400m and anchored the Open 4x400m relay team to Finals Evening. Furthermore, Chloe Joubert (Year 9) came from behind to clutch a determined 3rd place in the 800m, while in the pool, Romilly Walker’s (Year 10) strong performances at the GSV Finals Evening gained her selection within the GSV and School Sports Victoria representative swimming teams. Romilly represented St Catherine’s with pride, setting the standard for what it takes to excel at such a high level.

The St Catherine’s Rowing program continued to excel at the highest level. Despite the cancellation of the Head of the School Girls Regatta, our junior and intermediate crews enjoyed their season, learning a lot about the effort, resilience and teamwork required to improve within the sport. Our senior crews had an extremely competitive season. Both crews won their respective divisions at the Australian Henley on the Yarra Regatta, while the St Catherine’s 120 Crew won the Melbourne Head Regatta for the third consecutive year. The successful season culminated with the St Catherine’s 120 Crew’s nail biting 2nd place finish at the Australian Schoolgirls Rowing Championships.         

St Catherine’s 120 “Scotty” Crew.

The St Catherine’s Snowsports Team once again proved to be a dominant force on the mountain. In an outstanding team effort, the Senior Snowsports Team took a keen sweep of the Victorian and Australian Interschools events. Outstanding contributions were made by Matisse Stafford (Year 7), Jessica Yang (Year 9) and Madeleine Hooker (Year 8) who all achieved top three podium places across Alpine, Snowboard and Cross Country events respectively at the Australian Interschools.

Although we regularly recognise and praise the performances of those students who wear the light blue on competition day, we also acknowledge the effort and achievements of those who wear different colours, yet still represent the pride of St Catherine’s in all that they do. This year, St Catherine’s had a number of students who represented either Victoria or Australia in teams across a range of sports. The following students must be recognised for their outstanding achievement within sport:

  • Jeaneath Wong (Year 8) won the School Sport Australian Golf Championships. Jeneath was awarded the All Australian Team prize for her outstanding achievement.
  • Samantha Love (Year 7) and Lucy Dunlop (Year 7) were selected to represent Victoria at the U13 Australian Hockey Carnival. Samantha was named captain of the team.
  • Lindsey Ware (Year 10) was selected to represent within the Victorian Equestrian Team to compete at the 2018 Marcus Oldham Australian Interschool Championships. Lindsey placed 2nd overall in the Secondary Advanced Dressage.
  • Jemima Wilcox (Year 7) was selected to represent the Australian Country Basketball Team during their U15 New Zealand Tour.
  • Romilly Walker (Year 10) was selected to represent Victoria at the School Sport Australia Swimming Championships, where she finished 4th in the 16yrs 100m Freestyle.
  • Olivia Nigido-Scott (Year 8) qualified to represent Victoria at the Australian Athletics Championships, competing in the Hammer Throw, Shot Put and Discus.
  • Mayuri Muralidharan (Year 9) represented Victoria at the U15 and Cadet Grade National Fencing Championships. Mayuri finished 2nd individual in both grades and from here was selected onto the Australian Fencing team.
  • Coco Marshall (Year 7) was selected to represent Victoria at the Elite Junior Diving Nationals.
  • Lucy Gray (Year 11) was selected to represent Australia at the 420 World Sailing Championships.

Jeneath Wong (Year 8) School Sport Australia Golf Champion.

The success of the St Catherine’s Sports program is without doubt due to the support of our Physical Education staff, specialist coaches, School Principal, sports auxiliaries and parents. An especially big thank you to all students from Years 7 to 12 who have been involved in GSV Sport this year. Their dedication to their peers, sport and School have helped St Catherine’s achieve ever improving results.

St Catherine’s Sports Captains.

I would personally like to thank the hard work of the St Catherine’s Sport Auxiliary, led by Jodie Cody. The tireless work of this parent supporter group has given a great deal to the sport community across the year. Their ‘Run4Fun’, community fun run raised funds for the Monash Children’s Hospital and plenty of spirit for the St Catherine’s community. While their ‘Celebration of Sport Breakfast’ recognised and acknowledged the performances and spirit of the student-athletes within the Sports program.

Next year will bring some amazing opportunities for girls sport, both at a school level and in the wider community, and St Catherine’s will continue to celebrate the achievements of girls sport across all levels.

Mr Lloyd Knight, Head of Sport and Head of Athletics