News

Many congratulations to Haileybury's Under 15 Girls AEGON Tennis team who defeated Haberdasher's Askes on Monday to reach the County Final for the first time.

It was a close match (3-3 after the singles and doubles) but Elena Hoffman and JJ Billings won the decisive 'Championship tie-break' 10-4.

Elena, JJ and Hannah Mullee all won their singles matches 6-1, with Louisa Dubbers-Albrecht (making her debut filling in for the injured Lucy Smith) losing 2-6. We then lost both doubles matches 4-6 but Elena and JJ saw us home.

We'll be playing Queenswood (last year's National Champs) this Thursday, 4pm start at Queenswood.
 

Congratulations to OH Jamie George, who yesterday captained the England Under 21 rugby side to victory against France in the IRB Junior World Championships being held in Argentina.

George said after the match: "It was a tough game but we always knew it was going to be that against a strong French side; they broke us down well but showing the heart we showed in that game was a massive thing ahead of the semi final and we've got to take confidence from that.

"Our line got broken a couple of times but French teams with their flair are always going to do something like that. We stuck to our systems and played the game we wanted to play, we improved on the mistakes we were making in the first half and I'm massively proud of the boys".

Go to http://www.irb.com/jwc/news/newsid=2038874.html#pool+b+england+france for a full report on the match.

Haileybury's sailing team travelled to Dorset last Saturday to take on 18 schools, including the host school, Canford.

The team won four out of four races in the morning session against Canford, Sherborne, MCS 'B' and Bradfield. This meant Haileybury won the Silver Fleet. In the afternoon, they beat Eton, which took the team into a two-race play-off versus Tonbridge, which they tied, thereby finishing 3rd equal overall.

Angus Mayhew (B) and George Fuest (B) (in the first boat) and Harry McVicar and Owen Liggett (K) (in the second boat) were imperious in their sailing, while Rhiannon Massey (Aby) and Josh Johnstone (B) realised some of their potential, winning the race against Eton and one of the races against Tonbridge.

"This has been a quite superb season for the sailing team. It has been an enormous pleasure to take them round the country," says Master i/c of sailing, Angus Head. 

The BSDRA finals are in June by which time Angus Mayhew will have left school and Harry McVicar will be the new Captain of Sailing.

The season's overall results are as follows:

29 April - The Hoad Shield: Silver Fleet Winners
8 May - BSDRA Thames Valley Regatta - Bronze Fleet Winners (semi-finalists overall)
15 May - BSDRA Eastern Regatta - 4th place overall
22 May - BSDRA Southern Regatta - Silver Fleet Winners (3rd place overall)

Congratulations to two of Haileybury's teachers, John Whitworth and Annie Thomas, who took part in last weekend's Eton Triathlon. John won the event (1st out of nearly 1 100 participants!) while Annie came 2nd in her age group, beating 200 other men and women.

The event consisted of a 400m lake swim, a 20.5km bike ride and a 5km run.

A full list of results can be found at http://www.racetimingsystems.com/franchised/results.aspx?raceid=1111&emanagerid=3.

Last Thursday, Haileybury's golf team had an away fixture against Bedford School at the beautiful, but challenging, Duchess Course at Woburn Golf Club.

Given that the Bedford School team reached the National Final of the I.S.G.A. and H.M.C. scratch match-play competitions this year, and were playing on their home course, this was always going to be a severe test for the relatively inexperienced Haileybury golfers.

However, despite some obvious pre-match nerves on the first tee, all members of the Haileybury team played outstanding golf and ran out convincing winners by four matches to one.

Special mention must go to Hugh McAleer (L), Ed Graves (L) and Tom Courtney (L) for recording convincing wins in their matches against lower handicap opponents; to Joe Doyle (L) for holding his nerve to see out a tight win on the 17th hole, and to Jake Courtney (L), who was representing the school golf team for the first time, for showing great skill and determination against a County standard opponent and only losing out in the closing stages of his match.

Overall, a tremendous performance from the team … and a memorable victory!
 

Last Saturday morning a selected Haileybury mixed squad played against a touring team from Malezi School, Kenya. Both sides played high quality tennis, with Haileybury’s senior mixed team coming out as winners overall. However, the juniors lost to a talented Kenyan side.

The Kenyan children, who were aged 10-15 years old, had been visiting a number of schools throughout the country. There were a number of doubles and mixed doubles matches against the Haileybury team that were played in great spirit and it was clear everyone had a wonderful time. There were also some thrilling singles matches played, including a hard fought encounter between Francis Hunt and one of the Kenyan players. With the score all even at 6 all, Francis took a comfortable lead in the tiebreak but the determination and athleticism of the young Kenyan player was clear and he managed to win 8-6 in the tiebreak.

At the end of the day, a presentation took place and Haileybury gave each of the Kenyan players a tennis tracksuit. We were also presented with t-shirts and bracelets from Kenya.

The Kenyan players were making history as the first from the region to travel on a tennis exchange with schools in the United Kingdom.

This maiden trip, which will be the first of many, was sponsored by Virgin Atlantic and SKAL, and saw the Malezi School team visit and play against the UK's top tennis schools as part of developing new partnerships between schools in England and Malezi School.

Malezi pupils have topped Kenyan tennis for the past 11 years and most of its former players (like former junior champions Rahab Mbugua, Maurice Wamukowa and Terry and Joab Odera) are studying in the US on tennis scholarships. One of the visitors to the UK, Azisa Butoyi, is the reigning KCB Kenya Open ladies singles champion, while the rest of the team comprises the top players in Kenya.

All the Haileybury pupils thoroughly enjoyed the experience and we hope that a similar match will be played next year. Feedback from the visitors was that their time at Haileybury was the highlight of their UK visit. "We were made to feel so welcome and we loved your School," says coach, Dr Liz Odera.

Congratulations to Mayowa Balogun (K), Joel Stewart (Tr) and Jack Howe (Tr), who have been chosen for the Hertfordshire Under 14 cricket squad for the 2010 season.

Mayowa plays for the Shenley Village CC, while Joel and Jack both play at Harpenden CC.

Congratulations to Grace Rawlins and Alice Coley who have both been nominated by the Hertfordshire Hockey Association for Junior Regional Performance Centre (JRPC).

They will know sometime during the week commencing Monday, 24 May 2010 whether they will be invited to join the JRPC programme, the first step towards representing the East of England.

Well done to both girls!

Congratulations to Pippa Sheehan (M) who featured in the starting line-up, mid-field, for the Under 16 Herts county hockey team. The team beat Suffolk but lost to Norfolk in the next round.

Pippa, who has played the full season as first choice, played again last weekend against Middlesex but, due to the problem with flying, the Herts goalie was stranded abroad so the match had to be a "friendly".

Congratulations to 14-year-old Rhiannon Massey (Aby), who during the Easter break took part in the RYA Volvo Youth National Championships at Weymouth as one of the youngest competitors and was placed 11th out of 35 girls. As a result, she has been selected to compete at the World & European Laser Radial Youth Championships to be held in Scotland in July. There will be 100 female competitors aged under 19 from 35 countries.

Rhiannon is a member of the RYA National Intermediate Junior Squad for Toppers this year, but her aim is to move from Junior (Under 15) to Youth (Under 19) competition level. To do this, she is moving into a larger boat, the Laser Radial, which is the women's Olympic class.

After a winter of training in both boats, she is still racing the Topper, but she has also been entering adult Laser events this spring in order to achieve a national ranking.

Also on the major event list for this summer are the Topper National Championships in North Wales, and the Laser National Championships in Cornwall.

Rhiannon’s younger brother, William, will also be racing in these last two events.

Well done, Rhiannon!