SPORTS REPORT: 17 February 2007
Cricket
Since I last reported, the 1st XI has been on tour to Cape Town in South Africa to take part in an international festival held at Bishops. It was a very successful tour, both on and off the field with the highlight being the 4 wicket win over Bishops. Jason Graham was perhaps the player of the tour with consistent performances with the bat and some outstanding wicket-keeping. Jeremy Richards’ bowling proved devastating in Twenty20 matches and Godwin Mamhiyo and Matthew Bint both achieved 6 wicket hauls in the longer form of the game.
At this point in term, with one round of matches left to play, the 1st XI has won 2 matches, drawn 2 and lost 1. Jason Graham is the leading run scorer. Jack Randle, Daniel Landman and Jason Paterson have also scored half centuries at some stage. Dan Coulson is the leading wicket taker with his leg spin, followed by Stevie Macheka.
Arnold Moyo (U14 A) and Corey van Rensburg (U16 A) have both scored 2 centuries this term. Toch Enwerem (U16 A) and Ryan Gilmour (U15 A) have both picked up two five wicket innings with their left arm seam. The U16 A and U14 A teams are both unbeaten, the 16s with a 100% record. U15 A have only lost one match and pulled off a dramatic one wicket victory against a very strong St George’s team, Tapiwa Mutembwa and Tapiwa Pongweni adding over 30 for the last wicket to win.
In the B team ranks, Denham Zimbudzana has been prolific with the bat including a century against CBC.
Basketball
The first team are perhaps not rated very highly this year but all things considered their results over the term have not been too bad. They began with a loss at home to Petra but have since won matches away against the likes of CBC and Hamilton which strikes me as a pretty good effort. The junior sides have also had a range of matches and have won many more than they have lost.
Tennis
To be honest I do not have much news to report on the tennis front but I can say that Asaph Nyathi, Kudzai Mujuru and Mtsabisi Mhlanga were all selected for Matabeleland age-group teams
Waterpolo
With the loss of many players at the end of last year, this was always going to be one of those proverbial rebuilding teams. One loss to CBC apart, we have been successful in Matabeleland but found the going tougher in the Arthur Gower Memorial national tournament in Harare. However, given that a number of our first choice players were missing on that occasion, we can look to third term with confidence that we will move up the school rankings, conceivably into the top 3.
It is much the same story with the junior teams. In fact only a golden goal defeat against St John’s in the Collins Cup prevented us from coming 2nd or 3rd in that tournament.
Swimming
Third term is the major term for swimming but our boys have continued to compete in the Matabeleland Galas which are held in Bulawayo every couple of weeks or so
Cross Country
We have run the usual inter house races, relay course and school course. Hervey were the winners in the first meeting and Tredgold the long course. Tapiwa Pongweni of Oates was the fastest junior in both cases and pulled off an impressive hat-trick by winning our Inter Schools race the following week. Cedric Moyo (Oates) was the fastest senior relay runner and Conrad Tshuma (Chubb) was the senior winner. He was also the first Falcon runner home in the Invitational. Our juniors incredibly had all 8 runners in the top 12 places for the Inter Schools. Whilst the seniors were not quite so impressive they still did very well and we won the competition by a long way from Petra and then Mzingwane. Milton, Gifford and CBC also competed. We then sent some runners to the zonal cross country meeting at Mzingwane which was a long course although relatively flat. Here I don’t think we did too badly but came up against stronger runners. Pongweni managed 6th or 7th here and I think I am right that Tshuma was again our leading senior. It has been good to have something of a more competitive cross country season.
Richard Harrison
17 February 2007