dictates the game with his superb dribbling but energises the team with hunger in defence. The shooting guard, Adrian Hong Choy( D) dominates opposition with his ability to shoot and drive. The power forward, Kene Obienu( G), is a remarkable rebounder and player under the board. Finlay Saeger( E), shooting guard, is the team’ s top scorer thanks to his skill and athleticism. The centre, Sebastian Steiner( F), is an offensive threat with his post moves and controls the defence with numerous blocks and rebounds. Robbie Chow( K), small forward, has mastered the art of the crossover and combines it with explosive drives. The third years Joe Chang( K) and Max Campbell( G), point guard and small forward respectively, have played for the whole season with the seniors and are developing into phenomenal players. The junior teams are progressing well. The teams have a mixture of talent and athleticism. Although the results have not gone their way, the teams are learning how to play together. In the coming years, their dedicated practice will result in a strong senior team.
Hockey
Last summer, the wider British public were captivated by the sport of field hockey. In Brazil, eleven women were desperately trying to realise a dream that had evaded them for years. Back home in Britain, 9 million ordinary people were sitting on the edge of their seats to watch one of the most exciting moments of the Rio Olympics. The full-time score was 3-3, and the outcome would be decided over penalty‘ shuffles’. Once again, the goalkeeper Maddie Hinch stepped up and saved all four Netherlands penalties, with a skilled finish and a penalty stroke securing the Gold Medal for Great Britain, inspiring a whole generation of young hockey players. We hoped to match this in the season ahead. Watching this match at home last summer made me realise that passion, combined with a few exceptional individual performances, is a dangerous combination, especially in a game as fast paced and changeable as hockey. Unfortunately, there have been some hindrances to our season. For understandable reasons, we don’ t have our own full sized pitch, so we have to use the university pitch at Bar End. The distance and lack of training time means it has been a shaky start for the
Winchester 1sts. What has struck me this season though is the determination shown by the players, who know that when they walk onto the pitch they are already at a disadvantage, but play to the best of their abilities for the whole game. This approach has led to respectable results against betterresourced teams, such as a 2-2 draw against Bedales. There are also many young players coming through the ranks and, with the right development, our future teams could be very competitive.
║HOME & AWAY Luke Williams( B) & Omar Lingemann( A)
At the very start of the Christmas holidays, Monsieur Vieilleville and Madame Cadoret took a group from VI Book to Bordeaux on a French exchange. The group were exposed to the fine culture Bordeaux is so famous for, visiting wine chateaux and old towns and having tours of both its medieval and modern history. As well as this, the boys joined their exchange partners at school, getting a unique insight into the French lifestyle while improving their language skills. The trip was a success and the boys were grateful to their dons for taking time to organise it.
Ray, Lila, Griffin and Claire, four American exchange pupils from Germantown Friends School in Pennsylvania, arrived at the start of term for a three week taste of Winchester College. Although they didn’ t stay in any of the houses, they immersed themselves in the boarding culture by eating in College, Toye’ s, Kenny’ s, Freddie’ s, Furley’ s and Phil’ s. Not only did they participate in many of our lessons, but also in our sporting, dramatic and musical events. They particularly enjoyed watching Winkies for the first time and learning some of the rules. As Ray put it, Winkies was‘ absolutely mad’. They also had a day trip to see Salisbury Cathedral as well as a weekend outing to London where they visited St Paul’ s Cathedral. They were very popular members of the school during their exchange and I know that they will be sorely missed by everyone.
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