Ashburton basketballer Ashlee Strawbridge prepares for Gator Winter Classic tournament in Las Vegas. Photo Jamie AdairVery soon, Ashlee Strawbridge will be swapping Boxing Day sales and New Year’s celebrations at home for basketball in Las Vegas.

Leaving for Las Vegas on Boxing Day, Ashlee will be playing for the Mainland Eagles at the Gator Winter Classic.

The team will stay for 18 days and compete with 28 other teams.

Not originally part of the main squad, Ashlee was called into the squad from the reserves and is the team’s youngest player.

The squad is classed as U-18 but the Ashburton College Student has only just finished Year 10 and will be surrounded by mainly Year 12 and 13 students.

Mum Paula will be travelling with Ashlee and will be manager of the team.

Ashlee has been part of the Mainland Eagles academy for the past year.

Trainings operate during school terms on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays with Ashlee attempting to attend as many of these as possible.

Having picked up basketball at age six, Ashlee started to take things seriously in Year 8 after making it into the Mid Canterbury rep team.

Until this year she had partnered her basketball with netball but chose to stop netball this year to focus on basketball.

Ashlee’s main goal is to play college basketball in the United States.

This tournament could be a great proving ground as all the games will be filmed, and colleges will then have access to these recordings to use as scouting material.

Ashlee is also hoping to represent New Zealand at age-grade level.

She is currently waiting to hear back about the trial list for the next stage of trials for the New Zealand team.

By Jaime Pitt-MacKay © The Ashburton Guardian - 23 December 2016

Mid Canterbury’s rowing superstar, Veronica Wall, has been at it again.

The Ashburton College student, who has just completed Year 12, clean-swept her rivals at a Christmas Regatta on Lake Karapiro on the weekend – winning three separate age groups with consummate ease.

One of the real rising stars of rowing in New Zealand, Wall has enjoyed a stellar 2016 including an unprecedented four gold medals at the Maadi Cup Regatta back in April as well as both Canterbury and South Island Championships.

She signed off on 2016 in a similar fashion on the weekend too.

The only Ashburton representative at the regatta, Wall went through her six races for the event unbeaten.

Wall breezed through the Under 17 girls’ single sculls with a smashing performance in the heat before producing another great effort in the final – albeit 19 seconds slower than her heat performance.

Then she dealt out more of the same in the Under 18 singles sculls event – winning her heat by nearly 30 seconds before running through the final with a time of just under nine minutes.

The superstar saved her best for the open grade event however, winning her heat in a time of eight minutes and 34 seconds before improving on that dramatically in the final to win the women’s senior single sculls final in a time of eight minutes and four seconds.

As well as her results on the water, Wall has been cleaning up on solid ground as well this year.

She was awarded the prestigious Jubilee Cup from the Canterbury Rowing Association and was also crowned Aoraki’s Female Sportsperson of the Year.

By Matt Markham © The Ashburton Guardian - 19 December 2016

Former student Jack McDonald has an entry in a national art competition run by Fonterra. #431AM Rural Artist of the Year.

Source - Fonterra
Our farmers are up at #431AM getting the country started but that is not all that they get up to. For many they also capture their environment on canvas and through the lens of a camera.
We want to recognise and celebrate our rural artists who capture the environment where we live, work and play.
Kurow Corner

This acrylic painting is by New Zealand artist Jack Magnus McDonald. Jack was raised on a dairy farm in Ashburton, studied in Christchurch and now works in Wellington. Having spent the last 5 years in cities, Jack always enjoys returning to the wide open spaces of the farm when he gets the chance although his father Mark would tell you that Jack is a useless farmer. Jack tends to disagree with his dad on this point. The painting is of a quite rural corner near Kurow.

Vote for Jack’s painting here
https://fonterra.shuttlerock.com/fonterra-art-competition#/boards/fonterra-art-competition/entries/kurow-corner