Sport at De La Salle

As is the case at the beginning of every year, we hoped that 2014 would be an exciting and successful time in sport for De La Salle. The year began with a ‘Big Splash’ as we demolished all other schools in Division 2 of the ACC Swimming Carnival. Our emphatic victory returns us to Division 1 at the 2015 ACC Swimming Carnival. Under the expert guidance of Team Windley, the DLS swimming team continues to train hard and regularly to prepare for a genuine tilt at the 2015 ACC Division 1 Championship. Having won promotion back into Division 1 ACC Athletics last year, a huge challenge faced the 2014 team to ensure that we remained in the Premier Division. Despite some nervous moments throughout the Carnival, we managed to not only avoid relegation but to finish 4th in Division 1 and show that we are certainly heading in the right direction. The other highlight in Term 1 this year was the 1st XI Cricket premiership. After disappointing results in 2012 and 2013, it is great that De La has returned to being the premier senior ACC cricket team in 2014. Despite a number of our football and soccer teams being competitive in ACC competition in Term 2, our best results came from our 3rd placed Year 7 Division 1 football and soccer teams. This is the first time since 2010 that De La Salle hasn’t won an ACC football premiership in Term 2. The challenge for all DLS football and soccer teams is to make sure that they strive hard for the ultimate success in 2015. Term 3 proved to be clearly our most successful term of ACC sport with a triple treat. The Year 9A basketball and Year 7 hockey teams not only won the Premiership but were both undefeated on their way to the ACC Title. Despite losing the final match of the season, the Year 8A basketball team bounced back the next week against the same opposition to win the premiership by a whopping 23 points. 2014 marked the 40th anniversary of weightlifting at De La Salle. Friday 24 October was a massive day for weightlifting at De La Salle. The 2014 Sport and Recreation Cup was held in the College gym and we continued our dominance in Victorian Schools weightlifting by winning the title once again. Following the competition, a ceremony was held to officially open the Damian Brown/Harvey Goodman Weights Room on Tiverton Campus. The opening was attended by many great DLS weightlifters from the past 40 years and this facility continues to be used by our current weightlifting team who have had a very successful year. As we approach the end of the year, we have three of our DLS cricket teams still in contention for ACC premierships. Our Year 8 cricket team is undefeated and is on track for ‘back to back’ Premierships. With a total of 46 DLS Teams competing in the ACC competition this year, there have certainly been plenty of opportunities for boys to represent the College in ACC sport. The willingness of so many boys to strive to make ACC teams has been very impressive. These numerous and varied opportunities would not be possible without the tremendous goodwill from so many staff members to coach and manage our DLS Teams. I sincerely thank all of these committed and loyal coaches along with my two sports assistants this year, Andrew Brown and Brendan Close, for their constant hard work, diligence and genuine De La passion. 2015 will be an even bigger year in sport at De La Salle, with the introduction of another eight DLS Teams. Having won five ACC premierships this year, let’s hope that the extra teams will bring both more opportunities for students to represent the College in ACC sport as well as more De La Salle College success.

Sport assistants, Mr Brendan Close and Mr Andrew Brown