It's the start of the summer term and we've already had some brilliant first fixtures in tennis, cricket and rounders. In rowing our Year 9, 10 and 11 rowers took part in the Marlow Spring Regatta with some fantastic results. Our girls' quad and double both came second at the National Sculling Regatta at Dorney Lake and our girls' coxed four won at the Wallingford Regatta with our first VIII coming in third and our second VIII second in their races.
Tennis
The tennis season has indeed got off to a fantastic start, with three tournaments played last week. The Boys' Singles tournament at Leighton Park, where our top four players competed against the top four from The Oratory, Leighton Park and Pangbourne. The Girls' Singles was played at Shiplake against Pangbourne and Leighton Park, and the Girls' Doubles was also played at Shiplake against The Oratory, Leighton Park School and Pangbourne.
The boys' singles was a closely fought affair, with one competitor from Oratory competing for Oxfordshire. Team captain J Blacknell won all of his rubbers for the loss of just 3 games. The performances of L Poundall, B Varady and B Staddon were also very strong which contributed to an impressive total of 52 games won, and an overall three way tie between Shiplake, Oratory and Leighton Park. A very promising start indeed.
Shiplake was represented at the Girls' Singles by the impressive S DiCuffa who went undefeated in what was described by Mr Miller as an exhibition of Roddickesque serving. (Unfortunately the comparison was lost on the girls, making the coaches who remember the only recently retired Andy Roddick's serve feel very old indeed.) Sienna will have an opportunity to put her singles skills on display again this week.
The Girls' Doubles was a hard fought affair, and though a valiant effort A Townsend and S Reid, representing Shiplake, came third with good lessons learnt about having practise with the same partner. A rotating Singles and Doubles team will give us the chance to see the girls compete in both the doubles and singles this week.
All in all a stellar start which I hope will foreshadow the rest of the season.
Report by Mr S Shaw
Rowing
Over the weekend, the Year 9, 10 and 11s took part in their first ever regatta, at the Marlow Spring Regatta. The Year 11s had some good race experience in a coxed four and a quad.
The Year 10 A and B crews both had good races with the A crews beating Marlow Rowing Club, however they lost in the final to St Edward's. The Year 9 A boat had their first taste of success and won their event!
Well done to:
R Evans
W Tavinor
F Coultas
O Bennett
T Lane
M Taylor-Fitzgibbon
R Campbell
S Crehan-Mills
Cox: B Loggie
On Sunday the Wallingford Regatta was held at Dorney Lake. The boys' 1st VIII continue to perform well finishing 3rd fastest crew ahead of Eton and Radley to name a few. The 2nd VIII was the 2nd fastest 2nd VIII behind Radley's 2nd VIII. The girls' coxed four of G Halmann, E Webb, G Catlin, C Green, coxed by M Walker won their event beating 10 other crews from top schools and rowing clubs across the country.
On Bank holiday Monday the girls quad and double raced at the National Sculling Regatta held at Dorney Lake. The quad raced well to make the A final and finish 2nd winning a Silver medal. The girls double also made it into the A final and finished 2nd winning a Silver medal.
Congratulations to all those that competed over the weekend and to the coaches.
Rounders
Team 1
On Wednesday 27 April, Shiplake took part in a great rounders match against Holyport. Shiplake started batting first while Holyport was in the field. With lots of girls scoring rounders it was going to be hard to beat. There were some excellent rounders from the girls especially G Bradbury and Shiplake finished with 10 rounders in their first inning. Shiplake started to field and with very tight fielding from all of the girls especially from G Garner and E Browne. The girls from the Holyport team were good at batting but Shiplake still managed to get lots of their girls out. With Shiplake batting again, they scored a lot of rounders, managing to finish with 18 ½ rounders, which was going to be hard for Holyport to beat. Although they did have a good batting round, Shiplake's fielding continued to be excellent with a lot of catches to get people out. Holyport finished on 10 ½ rounders which meant that Shiplake took a good win, for their first ever rounders match for the season. The player of the match was M Fisher for her great bowling throughout the game. Well done girls, a great start to the season.
Report by G McKie-King, Team 1 Rounders Captain
Team 2
On Wednesday afternoon Shiplake had their first rounders matches of the season against Holyport. Shiplake played two innings and overall scored 18 ½ to 11 ½ rounders. M Adams was chosen as Holyport's player of the match for batting along with P Kay for fielding. Well done to T Firth and P Sanderson for their deep fielding and throwing. Another mention to E Lambert and I Hepburn for their fantastic batting and scoring many rounders during the match. Well done again to the girls that played and winning the first match back.
Report by E Harris, Team 2 Rounders Captain
Cricket
On Saturday there were wins for:
1) The 1st XI which featured a first 50 of the season for T Rossouw and 3 wickets on debut for T Barley
2) The 2nd XI with 45* T Sharpe and outstanding figures of 5/5 for C Moss
3) U15Bs with a top score of 32 from H Rodriguez.
F Partridge should also be noted for a determined 34* for the U14As.
On Sunday the first XI were drawn against Reading Blue Coat in the first round of the national T20. RBC posted a challenging total of 155 aided by some loose seam bowling by Shiplake. A win looked beyond reach midway through the innings but then T Rossouw batted superbly scoring 63 from 33 balls to leave Shiplake needing 7 from the last 5 balls. We were unable to get over the line ending just two runs short.
In our second game of the day, captain J Angell scored an unbeaten 83 as we successfully chased Elizabeth College from Guernsey’s total of 140, with 8 balls to spare. A strong Bradfield college side progressed to the next stage of the tournament after winning both of their games on the day.
Other results
Cricket
1st XI v UCS - won by 7 wickets
2nd XI v UCS - won by 3 wickets
U15A v UCS - lost by 78 runs
U15B v UCS - won by 71 runs
U14A v UCS - lost by by 58 runs
U14B v UCS - lost by 6 wickets
