In the final Sports Report of the academic year, we catch up on sport from the final week of term. This includes a cricket tournament at Reading Blue Coat School, the final matches from the Shiplake Open Tennis Tournament, the House Sports Championships and Sports Day.
Shiplake Open
The Shiplake Open came to its conclusion on Saturday 17 June with the finals of the Singles, Junior Singles, and Doubles all taking place. The Mixed Doubles final took place earlier that week on Wednesday 14 June. It was wonderful to have so many entries for all events with both pupils and staff getting involved.
In the first final, the Mixed Doubles event, Year 13 pupils Siena Di Cuffa and Joe Rogers teamed up to take on Shiplake Marketing’s Mrs Green and Mr Johnston. Despite losing the first set 6-4, the pupils rallied to take the next two sets 6-2 and 6-1 to be crowned Mixed Doubles champions.
Ahead of the first Finals event, which took place on the grasses courts, we welcomed back Old Vikings, parents, family, and current pupils to take part in a mix-in doubles tournament on the all-weather courts. It was great to see many familiar faces and it was the perfect way to start the Shiplake Open Tennis Finals. Congratulations to the Greig-Bartrams who won all their matches and took 1st place.
The first event was the Doubles final which saw Year 13 pupils Louis Poundall and B Varady team up to take on Year 12’s Noah Sennhauser and Year 11’s Seb Mealing. The crowd present to watch this enthralling match were treated to some excellent tennis throughout with Noah and Seb taking the win 6-1 6-3 to be crowned champions. This match was followed by the Junior Singles event which saw William Hunt face Charlie Broad in a best of five, five-game sets match. Despite pushing him all the way, Charlie eventually succumbed to William’s powerful hitting with the final result 3-1 3-1 3-1.
In the last event of the day – the Singles final – Noah Sennhauser, fresh off the back of his Doubles victory, returned to take on Alex Langton for the title. In a match with plenty of hard hitting, technical finesse, and moments of technical genius, Noah had enough to see off Alex, despite a second set resurgence from the latter. Final score was 6-0 6-3 to Noah who added the Singles title to his earlier Doubles victory.
Cricket
On Monday 26 June, our boys’ 1st XI attended a cricket tournament at Reading Blue Coat School. Despite losing their first match to Dr Challoner’s Grammar School by 69 runs, the team regrouped to take victories against RBC (by 76 runs), and Aylesbury Grammar School (by 7 wickets) to take home the Plate Trophy. A special mention must go to T Rossouw who scored a century in the second match which helped secure the victory!
House Sports Championships
On Monday 26 June, Shiplake College’s House Sports Championships took place with a multitude of sports and activities taking place throughout the day. The results of this contributed to the Baldry Cup which was awarded the following day during the final Whole School Assembly.
All pupils in Years 9-13 got involved and were on a carousel of activities throughout the day. This included football, table tennis, softball, and basketball for Years 9-11, while for our Sixth Form pupils, their activities included tennis, netball, softball, and inflatables.
After all the scores had been added up, it was Orchard House who emerged victorious on the day, narrowly beating Skipwith House by a single point.
Sports Day
Following on from the previous day’s Championships, Sports Day took place on Tuesday 27 June. The day consisted of athletics events in the morning, a swimming gala after lunch before the day concluded with a tug-of-war competition.
In the morning, all pupils gathered on New Field for a morning of athletics which included 100m, 200m, 300m, 400m, 800m, and relay events. There were also shot-put and long jump events going on throughout the morning while the races took place. It was wonderful to see all of the House colours on display and to hear everyone cheering on their peers. A special mention must go to the following pupils who set new records during morning of athletics:
- Jonny Calow, Lower School 200m
- Harry Biggs, Lower School 800m
- Greg Jones, Senior 200m
- Greg Jones, Senior 400m
In the Swimming Gala, our pupils in Lower School and in Years 9 and 10 gathered around the pool in their numbers to cheer on the competitors. Events included a medley relay, as well as 50m free-style, back-stroke and breast-stroke races. Congratulations to Orchard House for taking the overall victory in the swimming!
The day culminated with a tug-of-war event which consisted of a Lower School event, a junior event for Years 9 and 10, and a senior event for Years 11-13. In the Lower School event, the Titans shrugged off the challenges from Olympians and Spartans to take a dominant victory. In the junior event, Orchard House blew everyone off the AstroTurf with their strength, winning all their heats and final in spectacular fashion. Not to be outdone by their junior equivalents, the senior teams put on a show which led to a Welsh vs Orchard grand finale. In the heats, Welsh had the better of their opponents, but it would prove to be a different story in the final with Orchard seniors making it a double victory in the tug-of-war after a contest that lasted well over a minute.
Their heroics in the gala and tug-of-war, coupled with their earlier efforts in the morning athletics, saw Orchard House dominate the scores making them the winning House of Sports Day!
A full gallery of the above events can be found in the album below. Individual albums can be found on the College's Flickr Page!
