The recent weeks have seen our girls compete in the Intercol competition against Seymour College. This time around included our summer sports, consisting of:

• rowing
• water polo
• tennis
• touch football
• basketball
• volleyball.

The Intercol competition sees all of our teams for these sports compete against similarly graded teams from Seymour. Seymour was the host school and most of the events took place at their grounds, with the exceptions of swimming and water polo (SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre), rowing (West Lakes) and Middle A and B basketball and touch (Wilderness).

Our teams competed strongly and represented our school with such pride. We came away with some terrific results; however, we did not come away with the final summer Intercol points trophy. We did claim the basketball, touch, swimming and volleyball trophies.

Please see the results table attached.

I would like to say a huge thanks to Ms Deb Jarrett and Mr Derek Woodcock, who did the organising for this event before I began in the role as Director of Sport and Recreation. I would also like to thank our coaches and supervisors for their efforts in preparing and coaching our girls during the competition. Finally, I must thank our supporters and families who came out to cheer on our girls in each of these events.

After being in this role for the third week, I thoroughly enjoyed being part of my first Intercol event and it was a terrific experience. The Sports Committee are beginning plans to continue to grow this competition into the future.

IGSSA Swimming Carnival

On Tuesday 12 March, our IGSSA swimming team headed to the SA Aquatic and Leisure Centre to compete in the annual IGSSA Swimming championships. As Seymour were in attendance at this event, we also competed for Intercol points determined by which team finished higher at the event.

Wilderness performed outstandingly well, especially considering many of our team had spent the weekend prior competing in the National Swimming Championships.

We finished second overall on 828 points, with Seymour on 671. Our girls also came away with the Under 15 age group winners pennant. This is awarded to the age group that scores the most points per event. We claimed 252 points to be clear winners. Congratulations to our under 15 swimmers Asta Mickan, Charlise Green, Isabella Beaumont and Rose Franze (Year 10).

Congratulations

At the recent SA Athletics State Championships, our girls Bella Browning (Year 11) and Jasmin Thirlwell (Year 12) came away with some amazing results.

Bella received a bronze medal in the U/17 100m and 200m finals.

Jas received a bronze medal in the U/20 400m final.

We also want to congratulate Sasha Hardin (Year 12), who made her SANFL Women’s League debut for the North Adelaide Football Club. She performed extremely well, collecting eight disposals and laying two tackles.

We are so proud of these girls’ efforts and the way they have represented Wilderness on the big stage.

Upcoming Events

• Thursday 4 April: SSSA Athletics Carnival at SA Athletics Stadium
• Friday 12 April: Junior School Swimming Carnival at Adelaide Aquatic Centre.

Head of the River

Saturday 16 March saw Wilderness compete in the Head of the River, the biggest school sporting event held in South Australia each year. Head of the River sees 15 rowing schools competing in coxed quad sculls, coxed fours and coxed eights in both boys and girls categories.

Wilderness was represented by 13 crews who trained since September last year to prepare for the final regatta of the season. Every Wilderness crew earned a position in their A Final based on the qualification regattas held earlier in the term. Of our 13 crews racing, nine crews finished in the top three to win medals, and a special congratulations must got to our winning Year 9 C crew of Annabel Wheeler, Holly Fong, Audrey Wadlow, Evie Abbott and cox Charlotte Callus, coached by Ms Amelia Linton. Another significant highlight of the day was seeing both our First and Second Eights place in the top three for the first time since 2006!

Congratulations to all our wonderful girls, coaches and community on a fantastic season!

Jon Trovas
Acting Director of Rowing

Australian Rowing Championships

Last week, our Wilderness First Eight attended the Australian Rowing Championships held in Penrith, NSW. The girls raced in four different events competing in heats, semi-finals and finals, performing exceptionally well through medalling in each event and winning the most medals of any South Australian school.

The U19 Women's Pair was arguably the most competitive underage event of the week with several Australian representatives competing. Gia Rinaldi and Imogen Hawker (Year 11) were outstanding, winning a bronze medal only half a length off the silver medal crew from Western Australia.

In the U19 Women's Coxless Four, the Wilderness crew of Milly Entwistle (Year 11), Lulu Detmold Cox (Year 12), Emily Powers (Year 11) and Alex Sandow (Year 11) finished in fourth place against a high quality field and made a significant improvement from their heat. Imogen and Gia raced in a composite crew with Unley High and won the silver medal against the Sydney–Western Australian composite crew boasting three Australian rowers.

The School Girl Eight Sprint saw our First Eight race in a heat and final against 21 entries. The start has always been a strength for our crew and the girls jumped out to an early lead against a very strong Pymble crew from Sydney. The crews were locked together for most of the race and our girls won the silver medal only 0.5 seconds off the winning crew.

The School Girl Coxed Four of Imogen, Gia, Isabel Jackson (Year 11), Marji Tucker (Year 12) and cox Sophia Tayeb (Year 12) was our final event with the girls earning direct qualification from their heat. The girls gave it their best effort and despite a strong sprint to the line could not catch the dominate Queenwood School from Sydney, who set a new best time in the event. The girls won the silver medal and are the third fastest crew to ever race this event!

We are so proud of our team and our Acting Director of Rowing and First Eight Coach, Mr Jon Trovas, for bringing home three silver medals and a bronze medal, the most ever won by Wilderness School at the Australian Rowing Championships. Imogen and Gia also won the equal most medals of any South Australian athlete, tied with Australian U23 rower, Nick Blackman and Olympic Gold medallist, Alex Hill.

Thank you to all members of our community for the kind messages of support and to old scholar, Jess Hawker (2020) for her assistance as a supervisor on the trip.

Jon Trovas
Acting Director of Rowing