Sports Report

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Hockey

Last weekend of the first half of term saw the annual Inter-House Hockey competition with the Juniors competing at Blore’s and the Seniors at Birley’s. It was a superb afternoon of hockey and was well supported by all the Houses, with even those girls not playing out to cheer on their teams.

In the Junior competition, Kingsdown were undefeated in Pool A to top the group with Carlyon finishing in

second place whilst in Pool B Walpole were also undefeated to finish top while Broughton finished second, earning these four houses a spot in the semi-finals. In the first semi-final Walpole beat Carlyon 5-1, while Kingsdown defeated Broughton 3-1. This meant that in only its second year of existence, Kingsdown, the newest House in the school were through to the final and would be up against last year’s losing finalists, Walpole. Kingsdown put up a great fight, but it was clear that fatigue was starting to set in and they couldn’t match Walpole’s skill and team play resulting in a 3-1 victory for Walpole to crown them Junior Inter-House champions.

In the Senior Competition, Walpole topped Pool A with Harvey sneaking through in second place thanks to a superior goal difference than Carlyon. Jervis were undefeated in Pool B to top the group, while Luxmoore went through in second place. The first semi-final was between Walpole and Luxmoore and was a very close encounter. Luxmoore worked hard as a team to keep themselves in the game, but it was Walpole’s slick and clinical passing that led to their 2-1 win. In the other semi-final Harvey were under a lot of pressure from Jervis who stormed through to the final with a convincing 4-1 win. In the final Walpole put up a good fight but again the unstoppable Jervis, led from the front by the 1st XI vice-captain Laura Patterson, proved too much to handle and the final result was a victorious 3-1 win for Jervis to finish their undefeated day on a high.

In the last few weeks of the first

half of term, thirteen pupils

represented King’s at the East

Invicta Swimming Champion-

ships at Kingsmead. This Cham-

pionship provides the oppor-

tunity for East Kent clubs and

schools to compete against

each other, and for swimmers

to qualify for regional and na-

tional competitions.

Despite a lot of competition

especially in the younger age

groups, the King’s squad of

Oleg Prisyazhnyuk, Lucy Andrews, Florence Brealy, Chloe Sumner, Emma Bradshaw, Dylan Turner, Daniel

Koo, Derek Lee, Phoebe Brockington, Louisa Long, Stephanie Andrews, Chris Sit and Ed Chan amassed a

total of 37 personal best (pb) times from 48 swims. Between them they made 24 finals, and were re-

warded with a medal tally of 3 golds, 2 silvers and 7 bronzes.

Particular mention must go to Oleg for the biggest pb of the meet, dropping a staggering 14 seconds off

his 200m breaststroke time, which placed him third in his age group and broke the school junior record

at just 12 years of age. Emma Bradshaw is to be congratulated for swimming the heaviest race schedule

of all the King's swimmers, and managing the highest pb tally, lowering her times in all but one of her 8

events.

In addition to Oleg's record, Louisa Long broke the school U15 and U16 100m fly record, which she had

previously set only a week before at the National Arena League. Phoebe Brockington has also been in

record breaking form recently, taking the U15 and U16 100m freestyle and backstroke records com-

peting for her club at Open meets.

Stephanie Andrews broke the 200m Medley U16 record, and both the 100m breaststroke & freestyle

U16 and Open records. In the process Stephanie achieved three South East Regional qualifying times,

and her 50m breaststroke time also qualified her for the British Winter National Championships in De-

cember.

The swimmers all gave each other great support on poolside, and are to be congratulated on their many

achievements. Thank you to all the staff and parents who so generously gave their time to help and sup-

port this very successful event.

Swimming

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Medal Winners Gold Silver

Bronz

e 4th 5th 6th Records

Stephanie Andrews 3 1 1 5

Oleg Prisyazhnyuk 3 1

Phoebe Brockington 1 3

Louisa Long 3 2 2

Emma Bradshaw 1 1

Lucy Andrews 1 1

Chloe Sumner 1

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Rowing kicked off in earnest after the exeat with the Club taking a good number of crews to Burway Small Boats Head both senior and newer junior crews.

New to racing were the Shells quad of Alex Smith, Jack Nielsen, James Crawley, Thomas Lazarevic and Niamh Carter coming in 5th in their event, a good first effort.

The girls of Minya Kearley, Sage Battle, Cissy Williamson, Cici Zhao, Tilly Abbott, and Ellie Cluley raced a number of times in quads and found the competition a bit tough but got a good gauge of what they need to do. Jen Hofmann and Sarah Beevers won the Women's Junior double with Jen then winning the girls junior single and being the fastest women's sculler on the day.

The Remove four of the Ian and Tom Wingfield, Alex Lapsley, Jeffrey Kahol de Jong and Piers Holden won their event...despite racing a year above themselves...a very promising start, with the Removes quad of Luke Omnet, Bruce Peng, Joseph Satoor and Ike Ike-Nwabuoku coming in 5th in their event. The Senior boys quad of Dominic Aldridge, Wills Edgar and Freddie Allinson missed out on winning the whole race by a second to Kingston GS with Freddie Allinson and Wills Edgar being the fastest pair of the day....a positive start to their GB trials campaign in that boat.

The Remove boys then combined into their Eight for the Medway Head where they raced exceptionally maturely to come in second overall just missing out on the overall win by 6 seconds over the 5k course. The girls’ Eight had a slightly tougher time with a rigger issue on the start meaning not all the crew could race down!

Freddie Allinson and Wills Edgar meanwhile raced the Pairs Head of the River in challenging conditions, on a flood tide with a very gusty strong headwind and came in 12th in junior pairs.

Rowing

HMC Singles - Single-figure handicappers only

The Berkshire Blue course is ranked 24 in England and proved to be a rigorous test on a beautifully sunny day. Up against other single-figure handicappers from other HMC schools, Ed Barrois and Zach Barker had many excellent holes, but one or two battles with the heather ruined otherwise promising cards and they both finished 17 over par. At least Ed can say he has played with Roberto di Matteo's son....

Canterbury junior fundraiser Texas scramble

On an overcast day at Canterbury Golf Club, the boys played wonderful golf, even during some very heavy downpours to finish at the top of this Texas scramble event in support of the junior golf at the club. Every player had to count at least 4 drives, but Zach Barker made sure that come the 17th tee, all could relax. Ably supported by Ollie Moore, Will Oates and Fred Miller, the team managed to go round in 6 under gross.

Will Oates gave an elegant reply to Danny Maude's congratulatory speech and the boys were very pleased with a splendid afternoon's play and the winners' prize of a box of Srixon golf balls each.

Royal St George’s v Tonbridge

Things were looking good as our two pace-setters, Zach Barker and Jake van der Gaag returned to the clubhouse with emphatic victories over Tonbridge's top two (33 points to 21 and 41 to 38 respectively). Zach was raving about an eagle but was eclipsed by Jake's hole-in-one at the par-3 16th (161yards) - quite a feat on such a windswept afternoon!

Golf

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King’s Boys have played three matches this half term, beating Dulwich 5-0 and Sevenoaks 3-2, but losing to Tonbridge 5-0.

Will Kirk, Gus Curley, Lucas Lacamp, Marcus Wong ©, George Meddings and Hazim Raden have made up the squad so far.

The win against Sevenoaks was an impressive one, with all the team working extremely hard. Gus at 1 and Hazim at 5 both lost 3-1, but comfortable wins for Marcus at 4 and Lucas at 3 tied the match 2-2. Will Kirk won a tight match at 2, 11/8 in the 5th, for King’s to win.

King’s Girls have only had one match this half term, beating Sevenoaks 3-2 in a National Schools group match.

Laura Patterson ©, Mog Lomas, Nika Webster, Gen Hull and Yolanda Imoke were the team for that match.

Yolanda made her debut but lost, Gen won 3-0 having not played since before Easter! Nika won 3-1 and Mog was outplayed at 2, so the match was tied 2-2. Laura put in a commanding performance to win 3-1 at 1.

Squash

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Following a much needed rest at the exeat weekend, numbers through the club increased at training and we were able to field all scheduled sides for both Reeds and Hurstpierpoint, something that proved difficult to achieve only two weeks earlier. I must commend the players, coaches and all other members of staff for this commitment and determination to fulfil our fixture list. Both Reeds and Hurstpierpoint have significantly improved their sports programme over the last five years and were difficult opposition across all age groups.

Senior sides The 1st XV have improved in their patterns of play and have been very successful in getting themselves into attacking positions; however these have proved difficult to convert into points. Unfortunately we have lost both fixtures against Reeds and Hurstpierpoint as a result of mistakes and miss-ing vital opportunities to gain points. Our performances have improved with each game and it will be great to have a re-vitalised squad ready and raring to take on the might of Haileybury and Tonbridge at home after half term. The 2nd XV have suffered a similar fate, although have benefited from the return of some players and increased senior squad side. We are excited to see how this team evolves over the first few weeks after half term in preparation for Sevenoaks. The 3rd XV have bought into the ‘whole club’ culture we are building and have worked hard training with the 1st and 2nd XV. They must be commended for coming so far since not being able to field a side against Eastbourne. Well done.

Colts Both the As and Bs have had shown fantastic form all season and have been a credit to themselves and

the hard work they put into training. Unfortunately, both teams have lost one game since the exeat weekend due to the very com-petitive nature of the fixtures and possibly not helped by some tiredness amongst the squads. However, the 16s have trained dur-ing the last week of term with the senior squad and have per-formed fantastically well. With Tonbridge in sight and a strong Hai-leybury to contend with, it is time to forget about the narrow loss-es and focus on the huge performances of which all of the players are capable!

Junior Colts The Junior Colts A team have found the going tough this half term, but they have made great improvements over the last few weeks and we will look to build on that further after half term. We hope that the other teams won’t be as big and strong! The Colts B have been working hard under the guidance of Dr Hayes and Mr Flower and recorded excellent wins against both Eastbourne and Hurstpier-point. The C team continued to develop well and have also enjoyed two excellent and hard fought wins against Eastbourne and Reed’s.

Under 14s All three teams have continued to train hard and have ensured that there is the opportunity for all play-ers to strive to play for the A team. Both the players and coaches must be commended for their deter-mination to improve despite the disappointment of strong performance still leading to losses against some very strong Hurstpierpoint and Reeds sides. It is vital that the under 14s focus on the key areas they need to improve in and get straight back into training after half term. The goal must be to imple-ment these improvements against Tonbridge and Haileybury.

Rugby

The competition season started on 17th September with the U14 Elite Series event in Peterborough where our shells faced some of the best fencers in their age group nationally. Felix Malet finished 3rd equal with Ethan Snee 12th, closely followed by Constantin d’Orleans in 17th.

The first home event of the season followed on September 25th with King’s hosting the first of the U17 British Ranking Events of the season. The event, sponsored by Bang & Olufsen of Canterbury, attracted over 140 of the best young fencers from as far afield as Elgin and the Isle of Man and was officiated by referees from the 2012 Olympics, ably assisted by several

recent OKS. Douce De Boisgelin finished a very strong 9th, losing narrowly in the top 16. Notable results in the boy’s event were Hjalmar Johansson 33rd and Liam Brazier 37th.

The weekend of 15th October, saw the King’s fencers travel to the state of the art home of the British Olympic Team, at the Leon Paul Fencing Centre in London, for the 2nd round of the British Ranking event. Liam Brazier, recently selected to fence for South Africa, finished 13th, Hjalmar Johansson 24th, with Alec Baxendale, Ethan Snee, Roman Sokolov, Jason Kam and Finn Mulllen all making the top 64. Ethan Snee’s 42nd place, is the strongest finish for a King’s shell for many years and takes him in to the top ranked place for U14’s in GB. In the Girls’ event, Douce De Boisgelin produced her best ever performance at U17 level defeating several GB squad members to finish 3rd with Elissa Vinh placing 41st. Following these fantastic results, several King’s shells and removes now join Douce and Liam on the GB ranking lists.

Liam Brazier became the 20th Fencing International the school has produced since the start of the new millennium, making his International debut for South Africa at the European U17 Circuit Fechtclub Bonn, Germany. With 207 fencers chosen from 27 Countries, Liam fenced extremely well in the group stages with victories against members of the French, Czech Republic and German squads to reach the top 128. He narrowly missed out on the top 64 losing 13-15. An impressive debut performance at this level.

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Lacrosse

Fencing

On Saturday, 15th October, the King’s School Junior Lacrosse Team lined up against the B Team of Christ Church University, marking their best result yet on the season. The King’s defense started off slowly in the first half, letting in 3 unanswered goals. However, after making some adjustments, Stephanie Fang led the team in turnovers and clearances, allowing offensive player, Susie Reed to put two goals on the board, King’s first goals of the season. The team’s new confi-dence in its scoring ability led it to have more shots on goal than any other game in the season. Shell, Lily

Weir, kept the keeper busy with her shots although the keeper just managed to keep them out of the cage. Notably, King’s goalkeeper Kim Chiimba held the scoreline to 5-2 (CCU), making over 5 saves on the day. The Junior Team, looking forward, will be optimistic about future fixtures, as they get better and better every week.