The annual Brian Baker Water Polo Tournament took place this past weekend at Kingswood College. It was a successful tournament which saw 20 teams from around the country competing for 1st place in a tournament format.
There was much excitement around the pool this past weekend as the 12th annual Brian Baker 1st team girls’ tournament took place.
This year saw the number of teams participating teams increase to 20, with many of the top schoolgirl sides from around the country visiting Makhanda.
On Thursday, our girls had a great start beating Alex Road and Crawford Lonehill in a nail-biting game that saw the scoreboard read 10-9 in our favour.
Friday brought new challenges as we faced off with another two very challenging fixtures. Playing against Durban Girls College (DGC), our girls managed a last-minute victory of 9-8 in a back-and-forth action-packed game. Roedean from Gauteng was our next opponent, a team that we had previously lost to. Again, in the dying seconds of the last quarter of another spectacular encounter, our Kingswoodians managed to draw the game even at 8 all.
With the group stages complete. Our girls managed to finish top of group C. This sent us straight to the quarter final – our opposition St Anne’s from Hilton, KZN.
A previous encounter with St Anne’s saw the result end as a draw. This time however, Kingswood came out on top when the final whistle blew, having played one of their best games of the tournament 10-7. A great effort from the girls paved our way to the semi-finals.
This meant that the Kingswood girls were now swimming in uncharted waters. The girls met group stage rivals Durban Girls College (GDC) again in the semi-final, this time against a better prepared DGC team. In a hard-fought game, DGC managed to edge us out with a final score of 6-2, securing themselves a spot in the final.
After four hard days of Water polo, our final game was for 3rd or 4th position. The start of the game saw the Kingswood girls fight with the last bit of energy they had. In the end, their oppositions, Herschel, proved to be stronger, resulting in our girl’s placing 4th in the tournament.
4th place out of 20 teams is an impressive achievement for our Kingswoodians!
They showed incredible determination, commitment, and passion during the tournament.
Our girls have done themselves, and Kingswood very proud.
