During Tournament Week, 16 St Peter's students and two of our very special teachers headed up the road to sunny Oamaru for the South Island Mixed Hockey tournament to compete for the fame and the bragging rights of the South Islands best mixed hockey team for 2023.
On the first day, the team played Central Southland College in their first pool game for the tournament. At the start of the game the team had some nerves but that didn’t hold them back, with us pulling through to win 10-0. On the second day we played against Maniototo Area School and worked hard as a team to come away with a win of 10-0. Our third game was against Mackenzie College. This game a lot of the team were still trying to wake up after a 6:30 wake up but that didn’t hold them back for a convincing 11-0 win to make it through to the semifinals and being the top school in our pool.
With a day off from hockey the team thought they would catch up with Gore High and to play bowls and have a nice and relaxing day off before the semifinals. Our fourth game of the tournament, was the semifinal against Garin College. Our St Peter's team had to fight hard against a very well drilled and skillful Garin and the game ended at 3-3. With it being a semifinal, it all came down to a shoot-out where St Peters showed off our skills and won the semifinal in shootout 3-1. After a very long week, we had one more game ahead of us, the grand finale against a very well drilled and skilled Mt Aspiring College. This was the game where it was who wanted it more and in the end Mt Aspiring College won in a thrilling game 5-2. We still held our heads up high. We were one of the best goal scoring teams of the tournament, with the most penalty corners scored with 17 and representing our school as best as we could. We would like to thank Miss Cowan and Vince Aynsley for giving up their time and effort for coaching the team and helping us through the tournament. We would also like to thank Mrs. Sinclair for giving up her time to come and support us in every way she could. Without the help around us we couldn’t have played as well as we did.
George Hedley
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