Making quite a splash
Water polo teams excel
A number of top water polo playing schools competed in the annual St Andrew’s College Shield tournament in Makhanda at the weekend.
After a number of keenly contested matches, SACS emerged as the winners, defeating Clifton in the final.
A total of 11 schools from Durban, Cape Town, East London, Port Elizabeth, George and Makhanda competed in the prestigious tournament.
Opening against Pearson, the host school put in a commanding performance to win 14-4.
Their second game was against a tough Bishops team and St Andrew’s worked hard on defence to keep their opponents out, winning 7-3.
They held the upper hand in their next two matches, beating Glenwood House 19-6 and Stirling 12-4.
They then faced one of the tournament favourites in Clifton and conceded too many easy goals, losing 12-3.
Fortunately for them, the result did not stop them from qualifying for the quarterfinals.
They came up against old rivals Grey High in the last eight and trailed 3-0 as the PE team capitalised on a few mistakes.
St Andrew’s managed to score some good goals, but did not work hard enough on defence and Grey won 12-6.
The team showed character in the next two games, beating Pearson 6-5 and Reddam 6-3 to finish in a credible fifth place. ● St Andrew’s hosted the Settlers Regatta on the Kowie River at the end of January.
All the events ran over 450m in a knockout racing format, which made for a large number of races on the day and some good competition against Eastern Cape schools and universities.
The under-14 age group received their first taste of competition, racing in quads and octuples.
They will have another chance this weekend at the Grey regatta.
The U15 division had a successful day, coming away with a close win over Selborne in the octuple and suffering narrow defeats in the finals of the quads and doubles events.
The Open and U16 age groups also produced some good results.
Jason Thomas was the winner of the Beetle Shield in the single scull and Liam Little and Ben Kroon came out top in the Buffalo Shield pairs event in an all-St Andrew’s final.
Wins also came in the Warthog Shield doubles event and men’s B coxed fours.
The two open eights closed out the other schools’ opposition on the day to make for a three-boat final in the men’s eights event against Rhodes, the student crew emerging as narrow victors.