Sport

HOUSE

COMPETITIONS

Competition between the houses has been a tradition at Dio for over a century, the first recorded house competition, in April 1909, being a tennis fixture between School House and Selwyn House. In more recent times, the house competitions have included swimming, athletics, cross country, music and dance. In 2020, a service component was added in which the girls supported the Auckland City Mission’s winter food drive.

After the accrued points have all been tallied, at the final full school assembly of the year, the Stark Cup is awarded to the winning house. The cup was donated by legendary Dio teacher Mrs Riri Stark, who taught French, English and history at Diocesan from her appointment in 1956 until her retirement in 1980. Bright and charming, erudite, quick witted and generous in spirit, she lives on in the hearts of many Old Girl members of the school community.

In addition, the Heritage Foundation makes the Anna Tingey Award to the leader of the winning house. Anna, an Old Girl of the School, was an avid traveller, and to celebrate her love of the road, the prize is a quality atlas to inspire the winner in her future travels.

Swimming champions (Years 9-13) Front: Grace Jeromson, Lucy McKinnon, Aimee Crosbie, Jesse Welsh and Kasey McDowall. Middle: Molly Sherrard, Leila Ibrahim and Eva Allan; Back: Madison Clark.

SWIMMING SPORTS

The annual swimming sports event took place on Friday 12 February in the Diocesan Aquatic Centre where we were treated to some first-class racing. The morning saw our Years 7 and 8 swimmers racing against each other for top spot. Our Year 8 category was extremely competitive with our top three swimmers battling for finishing spots throughout the whole programme.

Our Years 9 – 13 swimmers again treated us to some fantastic races in all age groups, with a wealth of strong swimmers on show. Our Junior age group saw Grace Jeromson (9RO) win third place, Molly Sherrard (9MI) coming second and Madison Clark (9MI) winning the title of Junior Swimming Champion. Eva Allan (11ED) took out the Intermediate title, followed by Leila Ibrahim (11CW) in second place and Kasey McDowall (11SE) in third. Our Senior age group has some of New Zealand’s top swimmers; Lucy McKinnon (13MI), who currently holds our records for 100m and 50m breaststroke placed third overall. Swimming co-code captain Jesse Welsh (13CO) placed second while Aimee Crosbie (13MP), New Zealand Development swimmer and Dio swimming co-code captain, won both the Senior age group and also the Champion of Champions cups. Aimee Crosbie broke two records at swimming prelims with the 100m freestyle record now set at 58.56 and the 50m freestyle at 26.28. Aimee now holds all Diocesan’s freestyle records in both 50m and 100m at all age groups.

Roberton were the house winners for Years 7 and 8 and Mary Pulling won the Swimming Sports House Cup for Years 9 - 13.

Congratulations to all our swimmers who competed on the day.

Year 7 1st Melody Xue (7CO) 2nd Indie Williams (7MP) 3rd Hollie Lawson (7MP) and Emily Dick (7CO) Year 8 1st Frankie Dodunski (8CW) 2nd Emma Li (8RO) 3rd Celest Vo (8RO)

Cross Country

We started Term 2 with the annual cross country competition. In our favour, the rain held off, with some great racing taking place. The 2.7km course over difficult terrain, including up and over Mt St John, recorded some fast-paced racing. The stand-out competitor was Year 7 Indie Williams who had an extraordinary race, finishing first and having the fastest time of the day across all year levels. Well done to all the girls who took part!

Junior 1st Amy Shennan (10MI) 2nd Amy Stafford (10CW) 3rd Molly Sherrard (9MI)

Year 8 1st Hannah McManus (8MI) 2nd Sophia Haines (8ED) 3rd Sophie Pearce (8CW) Senior 1st Amelia Green (12MP) 2nd Lauren Williams (13SE) 3rd Imogen Foley (13NE)

Intermediate 1st Lucy Shennan (12MI) 2nd Eve Finlayson (12NE) 3rd Jess Finnegan (11CW)

Year 7 1st Indie Williams (7MP) 2nd Maddie Worrall (7MP) 3rd Cerys Findlow (7CO)

Senior Mitchelson girls celebrate their house win at Athletics Day.

Athletics Day

On Tuesday 23 February, Diocesan held our annual Athletics Day at Mt Smart Stadium, with COVID-19 alert level 2 dropping just hours before the event! It was a wonderful day all round despite the wind; the sun was shining and the noise of girls cheering one another on brought an encouraging (if loud) atmosphere to the stadium.

We had many girls participating in both competitive and non-competitive events. There were some awesome results over all age groups on both the track and field. Congratulations to Lucy Shennan who broke the Intermediate 400m record from 1986 with a time of 1:00.28, an incredible result. Well done Lucy! Other stand-out competitors were Indie Williams (7MP) and Hannah McManus (8MI) who won all the events they competed in on the day, gaining 50 points each for their houses.

At the end of the day, it was Mitchelson House that took out the top athletics house for 2021. Well done Mitchelson!

Thank you to all students who got involved, to the parents for coming along in support, and to all the staff who helped out on the day.

OVERALL RESULTS

Year 7

1st Indie Williams (7MP) 2nd Addison Hewlett (7CW) 3rd Emily Keene (7MI)

Year 8

1st Hannah McManus (8MI) 2nd Sophia Haines (8ED) 3rd Mackenzie Roxburgh (8RO)

Junior

1st Jacqui Nasrabadi (9SE) 2nd Amy Shennan (10MI) 3rd Charlotte Wear (9MI)

Intermediate

1st Maddie Kelso-Heap (12NE) 2nd Lucy Shennan (12MI) 3rd Chloe Luo (10CO)

Senior

1st Arabella White (13CO) 2nd Sonya Ha (12CW) 3rd Katie Ryan (13SE)

100m Sprint Champion

Sonya Ha (12CW)

Final House placings

1st Mitchelson, 2nd Cowie, 3rd Cochrane, 4th Mary Pulling, 5th Selwyn , 6th Edwards, 7th Neligan, 8th Roberton

Indie Williams Hannah McManus