News from the cricket pitches, plus tennis, real tennis and swimming!
The summer term so far has been packed with plenty of opportunities for the Westbourne House School pupils.
Athletics
Despite the potential for rain, the weather held off for the first athletics meet of the season, hosted by Westbourne House. The event was a success yielding numerous certificates and two school records. Special mentions to Nelly G and EJ for achieving new school records!
The athletics season continued with impressive performances at the Hurst Girls' meet, where Valentina R broke another (long standing) school record for the high jump and Mimi G achieved a new school record for the discus. The girls’ team secured an admirable 4th place overall. Soon after, the boys went to their event and while no records were broken, plenty of first, second and third places were achieved across a number of different events. The team's hard work paid off with an impressive first place overall in the tournament. Looking ahead, there is more athletics excitement in June with the Year 4 and 5 pupils heading to Hurst, the Year 6-8 pupils competing at the K2 for the annual qualifiers and, of course, our own Sports Day!
Cricket
We have seen some stellar performances in cricket too across both the boys and girls fixtures. It has been fantastic to witness the growing enthusiasm and passion towards hardball cricket amongst the girls, both in games and at break times with ever increasing numbers practising in the nets. In the girls’ senior inter-patrol competition, congratulations goes to Otters and Owls who tied 1st place. We look forward to concluding the intermediate and junior categories after the half term break. Both the U11 girls’ and boys’ teams emerged victorious at the Lancing College VIII-a-side tournament, both sides remaining unbeaten throughout. Special recognition went to Safi T and George H, who were named the players of the tournament in their respective events.
The boys' teams have enjoyed plenty of success across the board, with lots of close fought games resulting in victories. The 1st XI have been involved in some of these with really close matches to start the season and an impressive win against St. Christopher's in the IAPS U13 event. We look forward to a number of tournaments, many more fixtures and two touring teams from South Africa after half term.
Tennis
On the tennis courts I’m pleased to be able to write that we have had plenty of tennis and lots of success to go with it, with victories for the U12 and 13 boys and girls against Churcher's College and a good win for the U12/13 boys and girls against Cranleigh. We also entered the Sussex Shield tennis tournaments, run by the LTA at Bede’s school. Our U11 girls reached the quarter finals and the boys lost narrowly in the semis. In the senior competition, all tennis players gave it their all. The U12 boys reached the quarters and our U13 boys reached the semis.
We have good news to report from the Real Tennis court as well. Our squad finished narrowly second in the Prep School Real Tennis Championships, and very recently secured our maiden victory against Wellington College Year 9s in a hard fought 5-4 win. Sam, Nico, Logan and Ben each won two of their three matches to help secure the victory. Well done.
Special Mentions:
Firstly, off the back of their success on the real tennis court, but also for their commitment to tennis and squash, rackets colours have been awarded to Sam, Nico, Logan and Ben.
Secondly, we would like to congratulate the following ten swimmers, who all qualified for the IAPS National Swimming Finals after half term:
- Willow L
- Marissa E
- Valentina R
- Coco R
- Max M
- Hettie B
- George H
- Charlie LS
- Henry M
- Loftus S
Thirdly, congratulations goes to the U11A football team who recently represented the school at the ISFA National Football finals at St. George's Park near Derby. Having won their area competition, they lost narrowly to Chigwell School on penalties in the quarter finals, meaning that we were placed 5th-8th in the country!
With many more hard tests to come after half term we expect to see lots more improvement, and, just as important, some really well contested games of cricket. We also look forward to plenty more thrilling tennis matches and athletics events.
