schoolsthatrock
GC Squash Festival. A wise person once told me: “If you play squash for crowd attendance and people cheering you, then you must stop playing”.
Squash is a ‘lone’ sport, which teaches you how to control your emotions in different ways and self discipline. It is a sport which does not have a high crowd attendance, but it is such a privilege to play this game. Players learn how to control themselves on different levels, especially the emotional and mental side, as it is not easy to do.
It has been a great privilege to have been able to host the junior squash festival again this year at Graeme College for the 4th time. Back in 2019, when we had our first festival, no one thought it would turn out to be a sought after event in 2024. Over 100 young squash players attended this festival from all over the Eastern Cape – for the first time we had Bishops attending from Cape Town, which was a great addition. It is great to see how the level of squash has improved, the past 5 years, from all the schools.
Graeme College’s teams did really well. The U13A and U11A won 5 out of their 6 fixtures – which is great. The U13B and U11B teams held their own and did win a few fixtures against other A teams; which is great. Well done to Oliver Hart, Slater Hart and Julian Boy for winning all their matches, which is an excellent achievement.
A few stand-out achievements:
- Matthew Weber (U11B) played a blinder of a match against his Selborne (U11A) opponent – he did lose 3-2, but he showed great determination and fight!
- Morné Bodenstein had a very intense match against the Selborne no 1, coming from behind to win a closely contested match 3-1.
- Maka Klaas and Daniel Coetsee (Especially his performance vs Queens) had a very strong performance overall, winning ⅚ matches.
- Abakhe Luwaya (U13B) narrowly lost 3-2 to the Grey PE (U13A) no 4 player, which is an excellent achievement!
- Joshua Smith and Ongi Nongauza also had a few standout performances against various schools.
From the U11B Manager – Mr Wayne Weber:
In their 3rd and final fixture for the day on Saturday Graeme U11B took on the Selborne U11/12 side. The No 2 ranked match between Matthew Weber (GC) and Nathan Santos (Selborne) was a thriller and kept everyone on the edge of their seats. Weber won the 1st game 15 / 13 through some long , tough rallies and this set the tone for the rest of the match.
The 2nd game went equally deep and Weber again managed to fight out a win by a margin of 16 / 14 and went up 2 – 0 up in games. Weber took the lead in the 3rd game but Santos fought back to a well deserved 20 / 18 win to make it 2 – 1 in favour of Matthew. The 4th set started slowly and gained momentum with both players giving everything and Santos again coming out on top 15 / 13. With fatigue evident on both players the final game was all to play for and a great comeback from Santos earned him a well deserved 3 – 2 match victory. Well played boys. What a great advertisement for Junior squash!!
Results from the weekend:
- U13A – Won 4, Drew 1, Lost 1
- U13B – Won 2, Lost 3, Drew 1
- U11A – Won 5, Lost 1
- U11B – Won 1, Lost 5
Well done to all the players. They showed great sportsmanship and determination – Mr Bodenstein
More school news: https://schoolsthatrock.co.za/
https://www.graemecollege.co.za/
Photos supplied
Become a Sponsor
