House Athletics Carnival

The House Athletics Carnival

Our annual Homeroom Athletics Carnival was held in March at Duncan Mackinnon Athletics Track. On an overcast day, the conditions proved to be ideal as the temperature was conducive to high participation rates amongst the wide variety of events offered at the carnival. With impressive student attendance and strong Home room enthusiasm, the atmosphere at the Carnival all day was one of fun combined with friendly rivalry between students to earn maximum points towards their Homeroom success. In what has now become a great tradition at our Athletics Carnival, Mr Hogan and his Homeroom class provided a sausage sizzle and drinks for everyone and all money raised went towards our MAD fund and the Coolies trip to India. As well as this significant amount of money being raised for these charities, the BBQ stall really adds to the collegial atmosphere of the carnival. Thank you to Mr Hogan and his Year 12 Hegarty students for all of their preparation to organise the stall and then to provide food and drinks for over 1000 hungry and thirsty customers! By the end of the carnival, after 182 events, the 2014 Homeroom Champions were as follows: Year 7 Hegarty and Mr Paul Fegan Year 8 Jerome and Mr Ken Stokes Year 9 Miguel and Mr Peppe DiCiccio Year 10 Vincent and Mr Michael Watty Year 11 Roland and Mr Rob Hoich Year 12 Hegarty and Mr Tim Hogan

ACC Athletics

The ACC Athletics Carnival was held on Wednesday 2 April at Lakeside Stadium, Albert Park. We had 54 students selected to represent De La Salle on this day from a training squad of well over 100 members. After winning the Division 2 carnival last year, we returned to face five other ACC Schools in Division 1 and our main objective was to remain in the Premier Division. We fully expected a fierce struggle with Whitefriars and St Joseph’s, Geelong to avoid a swift return to Division 2. At the half way point of the carnival, there was less than ten points separating the three schools and the tension was building. Soon after this stage, our boys really surged in the latter part of the meeting and our 4 x 100m Relay Teams ensured that we had well and truly survived in Division 1 for another year. This determined and spirited team effort put us in 4th place by the end of the carnival with St Bernard’s winning their 11th straight Division 1 athletics title. There were some fine individual performances from our De La Salle team members and congratulations to the following students for winning their respective events at the ACC carnival: Harrison Gill – Under 14 high jump Zach Patrick – Under 15 shot put Lachlan Menara – Under 14 long jump and triple jump. Lachlan is undefeated in ACC athletics long jump and triple jump. Harrison Burt – Under 16 400m Tomas Smith – Under 13 4 x 100m relay Terry Potiris – Under 13 4 x 100m relay Jaxon Stuart – Under 13 4 x 100m relay Byron Gelagin – Under 13 4 x 100m relay The team was superbly led by Liam O’Callaghan (Captain) both on and off the track and I thank him for his proactive and inspiring leadership. The training squad was most fortunate to have the assistance from many staff members throughout our training period and I sincerely thank the following members of the athletics coaching Staff for their time and effort and unconditional good will: Chris Martin, Tim Hogan, Jeff Locke, Warren Walker, Chris Church, Peter Larsen, Janet Holden, Gerard Barns, Lucy Russell, Andrew Brown, Michael Bohan, Brendan Close and Clare Kennedy. Special thanks to Damien O’Shea (ex-student and current parent of Ben in 10B) for his voluntary and valuable assistance with our sprinters and great athletics knowledge and expertise. His guidance and tutelage with our relay teams was very evident at the pointy end of the carnival when every aggregate point became so critical.

We were also very fortunate to have the assistance and expertise at training from two very talented Old Boys, Alex Di Medio (2013 College Vice Captain and ACC Athletics Captain) and Will Johns (Year 9 2010). As well as providing high quality coaching for our 2014 Team, they are both fine role models for our boys as they continue to forge very successful careers in athletics beyond their school years. We can be pleased with our significant improvement in ACC athletics overall standing in the past two years but can’t be satisfied that we’ve done enough. We are certainly heading in the right direction and only continued commitment and effort next year will bring about a further climb towards the top of ACC athletics in 2015!

Mr Peter Harte Director of Sport