16 Feb 2024
Sports Report – Common Time 2024, Week 3

Sports Report – Common Time 2024, Week 3

Tuesday 16th January 2024 Basketball v Eton College (h)

This is the second time the U14s have played against Eton after narrowly beating them in a game before Christmas. Winchester started off the game badly with some players dribbling too much and not looking to play with the team. As a result, Winchester was down by 12 points after the first quarter. Things improved a little before half time, although Eton continued to extend their lead to over 20. In the second half, the teamplay that led to victory last term started to return, and when the final whistle blew Winchester had reduced the deficit to 10 and were catching up fast. Importantly several new players got to play in their first game, and the team ended the match on a high. Hopefully they will maintain this momentum into their match vs Wellington in two days' time. L35-45 [LNT]

Rackets v Cheltenham College (h): 1st pair, Bertie V and Jack B, played well to win 3 - 1 with 2nd pair, Stephen L and Alex H, doing even better, winning 3 - 0. However, Under 15A, Oscar O and Dima K, fell short and lost 1 - 3 to a strong Cheltenham pair. U15B, John L and Amar F, initially forged into the lead by 2 games to 1 and 12 - 3, but impressively Cheltenham caught up, winning game 4 in the set. This inspired them to then go on to take the match. Hopefully, this will act as a useful reminder as to how easily an opponent can overturn what appears to be a match already won. U14A, Casper W and Sam B, found themselves involved in a notably high-level match for this age group. They started strongly by winning game one which provoked the opposition into striking back by taking game two. However, this caused an even stronger counter-reaction from Winchester who swiftly closed out games three and four with the loss of a mere two points. This pair clearly has a bright future. Other U14 boys took part in a mix-around against their Cheltenham peers. Theo L, Eddie W, Casper J, Thomas F and Pierre-Alexis C all had good moments during these matches. Overall, a successful day. (TERC)

Thursday 18th January 2024 Basketball v Wellington College (a):

After some confusion with fixtures, Winchester U15s travelled to Wellington to play their U16s. Winchester were unphased by the challenge, but started slowly nonetheless, making daft mistakes and generally not playing their best. That said, they showed that if they got things together they could match their older opposition, so the 12 point half time deficit looked assailable. All the best plays in the second half were by Winchester and they were always in touch, but Wellington were more consistent and with some good play pulled away in the last few minutes. If these teams were to play again today I suspect that with a little more consistency and precision form our U15s, the scores might be different. [L39-56LNT]

Wellington are often one of our toughest competitors, especially in the first year. On the day, however, Winchester's U14s were on fire, with every player playing better and better as the game went along. There were mistakes made, but players listened and improved so that in the end no Sports Department matter what combination of players were on the court, the lead continued to grow. 77 points for an U14 team is unusually good, especially away from home and with few substitutes. There are things to work on in training and it wasn't a perfect performance, but it was a very good one, and moving forward this combination of competitiveness, control and skill is what the team should aim to produce every week. If they do so, they will be a tough team to beat. W77-21[LNT]

Thursday 18th January Rackets v Charterhouse (a):

Jack B and Will H-J - a newly formed pair - played 2 older Carthusians losing 1 - 3. Rupert B teamed up with Angus H and despite game two going to a set, they also lost to older opposition . Sen Colts - Seb K and Will H-J, who was playing for the second time - came up against a strong pair. The early season showed in Winchester’s lack of sharpness and, despite two very close games, they did not manage to take the win. However, Junior Colts, Oscar O and Amar F, made short work of their opposition taking all 3 games with the loss of a mere 9 points. Amar’s dominant serve and Oscar’s rallying consistency just proved too strong. [TERC]

Squash v St Edward’s School (h): Comprehensive victories at both 1st team and U15 level winning 5-0 and 3-0 respectively.

Saturday 20th January 2024 Cross Country Hampshire Championships (Aldershot) In the Intermediate age group (U17) two Wincoll runners were representing the Eastleigh & Winchester Districts Schools’ team over the 5.3km course. Out of 64 runners Issa D (V, I) finished a very creditable 32nd but Ivor M (MP, G) finished an impressive 11th to secure a place in the Hampshire Schools’ squad for the forthcoming Inter-Counties Championships, an excellent achievement considering Ivor is in his first year in this age group. There were five senior runners from Wincoll competing over the 6km course (Vincent G VI2, H; Gus B VI1, F; Louis J VI1, A; Felix O VI2, H, Will G VI1, I) with Will taking top spot amongst the Wincoll runners in 20th position. (CSM)

Fives v Alleyn’s School (h): U16A: Overall result 42-58 Doubles was a close-run thing with our U16 pair losing narrowly 9-11 while our U15 first pair winning 11-9 (both against Alleyn’s 1st pair). The difference came in the singles against the no.1 from Alleyn’s with our U16 players looking particularly mock weary. Some good games though and some lessons learnt. U15A: Overall Score 83-91 Our top pair (Plum & Felix) proved too strong in the doubles and to some degree in the singles although Felix did have a very close 12-11 win over their number 2. Our second much less experienced pair did have battle hard but had a much tougher time of things leading to a close match overall.

U14A: Overall results 109-96 Alleyn’s first pair at U14 proved too strong in the doubles and were unbeaten in their games. We came into our own in the singles though, with our top players in particular, who won their singles comfortably. Some good games and some lessons learnt. [GEM]

And finally… Congratulations to Seb M(VI2, D) who took a wicket in his U19 Cricket World Cup debut match against Scotland last week. He didn’t get the chance to bat as the top order achieved the run target relatively comfortably but we hope Seb gets further chances in the upcoming matches.

All fixtures details can be found on: https://sportsfixtures.winchestercollege.org/

Sporting quote for the week:

“If you’re not humble, it’s hard to be coached. If you can’t be coached, it’s hard to get better.” Jay Wright, former NCAA College basketball player

M.S. Burley

Director of Sport

22nd January 2024

X: @WinCollSports