It has been an incredibly busy and successful year so far in the College’s sports department.  On top of the weekly fixtures in the Hampshire leagues, students have been competing on a regional and national level.

The men’s swimming team, made up of students Tom, Will, Andrew, Matt and George, went to the London Aquatic Centre in November for the English Schools Swimming Association National Finals.  Having qualified 18th fastest in the country, the students performed exceptionally in the heats to place them 9th fastest going into the final.  They managed to improve on their swim once again in the final and held on to 9th place.  

Our Association of Colleges National Finals Campaign is now underway!  South East Regional tournaments are held as qualifiers for the Nationals and the first was golf, with student Izzy placing second and therefore qualifying.  This was followed by football, cross country, and rugby. Our football teams unfortunately did not get out of the pool stages.  The rugby team met Peter Symonds College in the final and finished runners up.  The College did however dominate in the cross country, with the top eight runners qualifying for Nationals.  Aaron finished 1st, Max 3rd, Jack 4th, Jack 6th and Ethan 8th.  In the women’s event, Amelia came 1st, Emmie 6th, Emily 7th and Emily 10th.  

Badminton, tennis and cricket were next.  Ryan won the men’s singles tennis and Nick and Callum triumphed at the doubles badminton.  Sophie was runner up in the singles, with Matthew placing 1st in the singles and Finn 2nd.  And with the cricket team being the runners up, everyone qualified for Nationals!

The hockey and basketball tournaments followed, which were hosted at the College and organised by our HSLA students.  The two days were fantastic and ran smoothly, so well done to our HSLA students for their hard word.  In the hockey, our men’s and women’s teams both finished third overall.  In the women’s basketball, our girls dominated and won the final against Queen Mary’s College, qualifying for Nationals.  Our men then played a very tough game against Brockenhurst College – after winning to secure a place in the final, they unfortunately lost to Richard Collyer’s College.

Last but not least was the netball qualifier.  Unfortunately, despite holding the eventual winners to a draw, our netball team did not qualify out of their pool.

This means we have a phenomenal 23 students representing the South East at Nationals in April in five different sports – congratulations to all those involved!