Diocesan School for Girls edge rivals to win NZSS Swimming Championships

Diocesan School for Girls returned to Auckland on Monday as New Zealand Secondary Schools Swimming Champions for the first time.

Dio won the event in Wellington last weekend ahead of close neighbours and keen rivals St Cuthbert’s College and three-time defending champions Napier Girls’ High School. Dio won with 1,839 points, just ahead of St Cuthbert’s on 1770.5 and with Napier GHS on 1,433.

Dio’s Sports Manager and head of aquatics, Angie Winstanley-Smith, said the team was thrilled to win the NZSS Swimming title, realising their goal.

“Our swimming captain, Annabelle Paterson, has just been in Hawaii for the Junior Pan Pacific Championships and she has come through Dio with a lot of great swimmers. But we have never really gone to this event and targeted the team aspect. She said I really want to go after this title, I believe we have got the swimmers to do it so can you help me go for it?

“Traditionally we’ve only sent a few students, but with Annabelle’s enthusiasm and some parental help we assembled a group of swimmers to prepare and 17 went down to Wellington in the end.”

Angie said it was a tough battle over the weekend, especially in edging out rivals St Cuthbert’s.

“They’ve got phenomenal swimmers and it’s a healthy rivalry we have across all sports.

“What’s really cool about this event is the team aspect over chasing individual wins and times. The girls were swimming lots more races and entering plenty of events that they usually wouldn’t do. It’s all about contributing to the team, so winning points in every race was paramount and the swimmers just did event after event.

“We had Gina Galloway who got a stack of medals and she’s a backstroker by trade but got right in the mix in the butterfly and got a silver medal there.

The competition was super-tight as well.

“After the first day we were about 90 points behind St Cuthbert’s and then after day two we were 14 points ahead.”

Points were awarded in every race, with the school with the most points at the end declared the winner. In finals, 40 points were awarded for a first place in a race, 39 for second, 38 for third and down to 30 for 10th.

"So 13 points is one swimmer in one race.

“On day two the girls woke up and were raring to go and the real focus was getting as many points on the board as we could and then on Sunday we just had to match St Cuthbert’s. They had a finalist; we had a finalist and so on.

“Napier GHS and Waikato Diocesan weren’t out of it either, and they ended up having a real tug of war for that third spot.

“For us it was down to the last race. We went into the last event with about a 60-point lead – but that’s only two finalists so it was just a case of maintaining that, which is what we did.”

As well as Swimming, Dio is making a splash in other aquatic sports too.

Dio’s senior team finished fourth at the NZSS Secondary School water polo Championships in April,  while the school’s intermediate team won the recent AIMS Games (Years 5 and 6) and their junior team won and their senior team finished third at the recent NZSS Underwater Hockey nationals.

Angie is a former elite age grade swimmer and competed for her home nation Great Britain at the 2012 Olympics in water polo. She’s been at Dio for two years and has also recently been appointed coach of the NZ Women’s water polo side.

“We came fourth in the NZSS water polo championships earlier this year, improving from ninth last year, reflecting a focus on development we’ve put in place. We have just won back-to-back AIMS title, so hopefully the results at the bottom end will start coming through and next year we should be strong at intermediate, junior and senior level.”

The 2016 junior North Island water polo championships are coming up in November and Angie says that Dio has an outside shot at winning that if they play well.

Then there’s the school’s underwater hockey success.

“They just did phenomenally, the juniors won their event and the seniors only finished fifth at the Northern Region tournament and went on to win bronze at nationals. They have great coaches, who are also Dio old girls putting back into the school.”

What’s the overlap of students competing in more than one of these sports?

“The swimmers not so much, because they are busy enough with that, but there are five water polo girls in the swimming team and then there are about four underwater hockey girls who play water polo as well.”

NZSS Swimming Championships, Wellington 9-11 September – top 10 schools (girls):
Diocesan School for Girls 1839, St Cuthbert’s College 1770.5, Napier Girls 1433, Waikato Diocesan 1355.5, Columba College 1062, Pukekohe High School 1020, Mt Albert Grammar School 813,Wellington Girls’ College 791, Baradene College 732.5, Wellington East Girls’ College 656.

Diocesan School for Girls – individual results:
Annabelle Paterson (16 and over)
1st 200m Back
2nd 100m Free
2nd 100m Back
 
Alice Waldow (13 years)
1st 200m Back
2nd 50m Fly
2nd 200m IM
2nd 100m fly
3rd 100m Free
3rd 50m Free
3rd 50m Back
3rd 100m Back
 
Gina Galloway (15 years)
1st 100m Back
1st 50m Fly
1st 200m Back
3rd 200m IM
2nd 100m Fly
 
Conor Tarrant (15 years)
2nd 200m Breast
2nd 200m IM
2nd 50m Breast
2nd 100m Breast
3rd 50m Breast skins
 
Imogen Rodgers (15 years)
2nd 50m Back
2nd 200m Back
2nd 100m Back
 
Claudia Avis (13 years)
2nd 200m Free
3rd 200m IM
 
Emily Doughty
3rd 100m Breast
 
15 and under 200m Medley Relay – 1st place
Gina Galloway
Conor Tarrant
Alice Waldow
Alice Segedin
 
15 and under 200m Free Relay – 1st Place
Alice Waldow
Conor Tarrant
Imogen Rodgers
Gina Galloway
 
 
16 and over free Relay – 2nd Place
Alice Segedin
Isobel Avis
Jess Shorter Robinson
Annabelle Paterson

16 and over Medley Relay – 2nd Place
Imogen Rodgers
Emily Doughty
Isobel Avis
Annabelle Paterson.
 
Other team members who contributed over the weekend
Zoe Dawson
Taylor Gyde
Charlotte Joblin
Polina Kudrow
Nicole Lockie
Hannah Mercer
Zoe Mercer

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