Sport

Beginning Term 2 competition against the strength of Brisbane Grammar School for round one of the GPS competition certainly tested our teams’ pre-season preparation. A tight outcome for our football programme and reflecting on an improvement in our tennis programme from last year is the takeaway this week. We celebrate some outstanding sporting achievements of our students outside of the GPS competition, which shows the breadth of talent Churchie students possess. Well done!

After another exciting GPS round one last weekend, we invite everyone to see the weekend’s results summary via myChurchie – GPS Sports and Activities.

Tennis

The first round saw us taking on Brisbane Grammar School, whose tennis programme is one of the strongest in the competition. Thirty-one matches were played from Year 12 to Year 5.

Congratulations to all boys who debuted for the blue and grey on Saturday; as expected, they all performed and represented the school very well.

Churchie was successful in four of the matches and lost most of our singles. The Second IV lost by just one set after a long battle. Congratulations to the Fourth IV, 7A, 6A and 6C, who tasted victory. It was encouraging to see this being an improvement on last year’s results.

Our First IV of Captain of Tennis Ben Donger, Jimmy Harris, Connor Ross and Aiden Chan, contended against the 2023 GPS Premiers’ strong lineup for their first hit. Our boys certainly had chances and performed well, particularly in their doubles, but unfortunately couldn’t close out any of the matches. Churchie went down eight rubbers to nil.

Having made it through this difficult first round, the boys will be keen to prove their strength next week Gregory Terrace. Years 9 to 12 will have their first home games and our junior year levels will play away at the GT venues.

Ian Malpass
Director of Tennis

Football

We kicked off the GPS Football Season with an away round against Brisbane Grammar School. Overall, it was a pretty successful round.

Unfortunately, we just lost the overall round with 14 wins, six draws and 16 losses. Our First XI team secured a 1-0 win in a very physical game in which both teams gave their all, played in front of a big and boisterous crowd. Xavier Veivers-Brown’s goal proved to be the difference on the day. We controlled most of the game and could have scored a few more with more clinical finishing.

The most pleasing part of the day was seeing our football community living by our values of integrity, discipline and determination. Below are just a few of the many examples that occurred during the day.

Integrity:

• Blaze Berlese (7A) – Never stopped working hard and strong tackling.

Discipline:

• Oscar Butler (8A) – Always listening and staying focused in the game, even when we changed tactics Oscar understood and executed on the field.

Determination:

• Ryan Xing (7B) – Even when we were down by a few goals, Ryan was continuously putting in 100 per cent and never gave up until the final whistle.

Prep School Man of the Matches:

• 5C – George P Chandler
• 6D – Harry Wild

Next week, we have a huge first home round against Gregory Terrace (GT). Our dedicated Football Support Group will turn the canteen into a Greek taverna for the day and sell mouthwatering souvlakis. We will also have an Old Boys’ game at 10:30 am on Main Oval. GT was the only school that beat us overall last year, and this is our chance to turn it around.

Alex Rados
Director of Football

Water Polo

Five Churchie teams travelled to Somerville House on Friday to play the first round of competition against Brisbane State High School (BSHS). The afternoon began with both the Year 7 and 8 teams winning by 9–2 and 8–6 respectively. As BSHS did not have a Year 9 team, Churchie played a combined Year 9 and 10 team against BSHS Year 10s, going down 7 goals to 10. The Open Seconds started well but were worn down by their opponents and lost 4 goals to 9. The Open Firsts, fielding a number of younger players, took some time to adjust to the pace of the game and lost 7 to 13.

Training will be as normal on Wednesday for the Open, Year 9 and Year 10 teams but there will be no training for the Year 7 and 8 teams due to the Anzac Day public holiday.

Friday’s games are again at Somerville House against BBC. Information concerning game times, team lists and transport are available on myChurchie Water Polo- https://my.churchie.com.au/homepage/13804/

Alan Greenbank
Director of Water Polo

Sporting Achievements

Congratulations to the following students who have achieved representative success in their sporting pursuits.

Rowing

Churchie Rowing congratulates 2024 First VIII members, Sam Williams and Eddie Parr on their recent selection into the Queensland Pathway Rowing Team. The pathway programme operates in all states and territories with the goal of identifying and nurturing talented school age rowers. This creates a link between school programmes and the state institutes, such as QAS and the Australian Junior Rowing Team.

Two weeks ago, Sam and Eddie competed in the Rowing Australia Pathway VIII’s regatta held at the Sydney International Regatta Centre. It was a great weekend and all Queensland crews performed well against all the other states. Crews are selected by combining individuals’ 2 km scull time and their 2 km ergo time. The simple selection process offers regional athletes an equal opportunity to participate and a glimpse of what is available outside of school rowing.

The reintroduction of sculling into the Churchie Rowing program means that these and other opportunities are now more available to Churchie boys.

We would also like to congratulate Churchie Old Boy Gus John (2019), on his selection and win for Cambridge in the 169th edition of the boat race held over Easter between Cambridge and Oxford Universities. This further highlights the opportunities for higher education through rowing at Churchie.

Track and Field

The Australian Track and Field Championships were held in Adelaide from 11 to 19 April.

Churchie had seven Athletes compete at these championships with some excellent results.

Name	Position and event
Jack Love	2nd Under 20 400 m Hurdles
Noah Tyne	4th Under 18 1,500 m
Zac Moore	4th Under 16 2,000 m Steeplechase and 5th 3,000 m
Andrew McConnel	6th Under 15 2,000 m Steeplechase
Lachlan Moore	7th Under 17 3,000 m
Cruz Collins	7th Under 15 Long Jump and 8th Triple Jump
Adam Beiers	3rd* Under 20 400m Finals

Mention should also be made of recent Old Boy and current Churchie assistant cross country coach Charlie Moore (2023)who won the Under 20 5000 m and finished second in the Under 20 3000 m steeplechase at the National Championships having just returned from finishing 37th at the World Junior Cross Country Championships in Serbia.

Congratulations to all these young men on their outstanding performances.

Water Polo

The following students were selected in the Queensland Water Polo development squads:

• 13 years and under – Xavier Ringholt, Thomas Holdt, Jack Barrett and Henry Juniper
• 14 years and under – Eli Nearhos.

Swimming

Congratulations to William Shepherd-Smith on his very recent selection into his first Australian Swim Team. The team will compete at the 2024 Junior Pan Pacific Championships hosted by the Australian Institute of Sport in Canberra from 21 to 24 August 2024. Joining William will be Old Boy Thomas Pattison (2023) and Churchie’s Head Coach Mr Richard Sleight, also selected into the National Team. Charter nations Australia, USA, Canada and Japan, the Junior Pan Pacific Championships are open to other non-European nations with Singapore and New Zealand among other regular participants. Since its inception in 2005, the event has only been hosted by Hawaii, Guam and Fiji with this year’s Championships being held in Australia for the first time.

We wish William and Thomas all the best on the world stage in August.

Trent Goodrick
Head of Cocurricular