Throughout Term 3, a large contingent of Years 5 to 12 students have been hitting the pool deck every Friday morning at 6.30am to hone their Water Polo skills. With the amazing coaching team of Miss Jeanette Gunn (former Australian Olympic team manager) and Michael ‘Macca’ McNeil (current President of Water Polo Victoria) challenging our girls to develop their understanding of the game, the Senior students set their sights on the Victorian Secondary Schools Competition.

The team travelled to MSAC (Melbourne Sports and Aquatic Centre) on Tuesday 27 August and were met with a challenging opening match against Associated Public School Sport’s powerhouse, Caulfield Grammar’s A Team. The St Catherine’s team fought hard but unfortunately went down 12 goals to 1.

St Catherine’s Senior students participated in the Victorian Secondary Schools Water Polo Competition on 27 August.

Quickly putting the lessons of Game 1 into practice, St Catherine’s came up against Caulfield Grammar’s B Team and were victorious with 7 goals to 1. This set up a match against Haileybury with the winner to progress to the next round. The match was neck-and-neck throughout, with a nail biting finish seeing a powerful Chloe Nevins’s (Year 8) shot at goal narrowly hit the post with seconds to go and seeing St Catherine’s miss out with a 5 goal to 6 loss.

Playing against these much larger schools was a great experience for our students, particularly the Years 7 and 8 students who will play in the Term 4 GSV competition. We wish them the best of luck for the upcoming season.

We also acknowledge our Year 12 players, Heidi Tokatlidis and Harriette Dryden, for their contributions to the sport over their years at St Catherine’s.