Last weekend the divers, swimmers and water polo players competed in the annual National Aquatics Festival. This year the festival was co-hosted by Our Lady of Fatima DCS and Durban Girls’ High School.

SWIMMING

The swimming took place in the short-course pool at Durban Girls’ College. This is a tough gala with great swimmers from many schools and we are always happy to achieve podium finishes. As can be seen below, by the points difference between 4th and 5th, the girls swam superbly, with many of them swimming season-best or personal-best times.

• 1st St Stithians Girls College 450
• 2nd Our Lady of Fatima DCS 407
• 3rd C & N Sek. Meisieskool Oranje 363
• 4th St Mary’s, Waverley 358
• 5th Eunice High School 259
• 6th Durban Girls’ College 247
• 7th Clarendon High School for Girls 226
• 8th St Mary’s, Kloof 219
• 9th Pretoria High School for Girls 183
• 10th Durban Girls’ High School 136

DIVING

The diving was held in a different location from the swimming and the water polo, at Epworth School in Pietermaritzburg. The divers were faced with difficult circumstances since there were no training sessions available prior to the event. Despite this challenge, the divers showed exceptional spirit and kept calm throughout the competition, creating a competitive atmosphere around the Epworth pool.

The St Mary’s diving results were impressive:

In the U15 competition all three divers placed within the top six out of 23 divers, the U16 divers placed within the top seven and the open divers placed within the top eight.

The overall results of the competition are as follows:

• 1st St Stithians 156.00
• 2nd St Mary’s School 151.00
• 3rd St Andrew’s School for Girls 84.00
• 4th Roedean School 71.00
• 5th Pretoria High School 59.00
• 6th St Mary’s DSG 50.00
• 7th Oranje Meisies 38.00
• 8th St Anne’s 36.00

Congratulations to all the divers on their achievements over the weekend.

WATER POLO

The 1st team competed in the water polo tournament. They won their three pool games against Pretoria High School for Girls, Durban Girls’ High School and Durban Girls’ College. Unfortunately, they lost 5-9 to Clarendon High School in their semi-final, but beat Durban Girls College 13-6 to earn 3rd place.

Some superb water polo was displayed by the 1st team throughout the weekend with senior Kiara Walsh getting a double hat trick, vice-captain Kayleigh Boere obtaining 10 offensive ejections and goalkeeper Nicola Watt saving four penalties in the bronze medal match.

Quix

Head of Sport