AshColl Senior A netball in action. Photo credit Vic McArthur.A top eight finish was on the minds of Ashburton College’s netballers on day three of the South Island Secondary Schools’ Netball Championships in Dunedin yesterday.

They knew they’d be up against it though, needing to beat Christchurch’s Villa Maria to do that, and they were right. Villa won the match 49-26.

But College A coach Kaye Kennedy said she was happy with her team’s performances so far, having achieved a goal set at the start of the season of making the top 16 in the South Island.

On day two, Ashburton College secured themselves that top 16 finish and second place in their pool despite starting the day with a loss to Nelson Girls’ College, and played Rangiora High School in their first cross-pool game.

They’d taken on Rangiora twice this season already and lost both times and they were unable to turn the tables, going down 40-25 despite putting them under a lot of pressure in the second half and only narrowly losing the third and fourth quarters.

Yesterday afternoon they took on Blue Mountain and lost 38-32.

In the tournament’s C grade, Mount Hutt College continued their strong tournament, notching up another win – 34-24 – over Greymouth High School.

In Invercargill at the Linwood Tournament, the Ashburton College boys’ first XI football team were also eyeing up a top eight placing after picking up two wins on Tuesday, beating Central Southland 2-0 before thumping South Otago 7-1.

Six of those goals came courtesy of Nick Eden.

But in their first game yesterday they took on James Hargest and after a scoreless first half, James Hargest put four goals past them in the second half. In their second game of the day they took on Cromwell and scored a goal in each half to come away with a 2-1 win.

Also in Invercargill, the Ashburton College girls’ first XI hockey team has had a tough week, with their latest result being a 2-0 loss to Epsom Girls, at the Audrey Timlin Memorial tournament.

In Queenstown at the Rural Livestock Junior Rugby tournament, Ashburton College lost another nail-biter, going down to Timaru’s Roncalli in the final play of the game 22-21. That left them with a good win and three narrow losses from the first two days of competition.

Meanwhile in Ashburton, the Schick Southern Cup basketball tournament – featuring the Ashburton College senior boys’ team – gets under way at the EA Networks Centre today.

At the Ashburton hockey turf by late yesterday, St Cuthbert’s College and St Margaret’s College continued to be the teams to beat at the Chris Arthur tournament for second XI girls’ hockey teams.

By Erin Tasker© The Ashburton Guardian - 6 September 2018