ANNUAL KEARSNEY GALA
Kearsney star swimmer and head of school Luca Sandri broke 10 long-standing school records at the annual swimming gala on Friday night, one of which had stood for 19 years.
He was named senior victor ludorum and his younger brother Cristiano the junior victor ludorum; with Sheffield being named the overall winning house. Unsurprisingly Luca was also awarded best performance of the day, with James Beningfield being his runner up.
Luca broke the 50m breaststroke record in 29:59 (held by Brett Penfold since 2006); 50m butterfly in 25:25; 50m backstroke in 26:18 and the 50m freestyle in 23:41 (all held by Brett Walsh since 2011).
In addition, other records to tumble were the 200m freestyle record in 1:54:82 (held by Myles Brown since 2010); 100m butterfly in 56:70 (held by Murray McDougall since 2010); the 100m freestyle in 51:04 (Walsh 2011); 100m backstroke in 57:04 (McDougall 2011); the 200m individual medley in 2:05:46 (McDougall 2010); and his own 100m breaststroke record in 1:03:62 which he set last year.
In 2023 Luca helped South Africa win gold at the BRICS Games swimming event.
BASKETBALL
Kearsney 1st team lost to Northwood 1st team 53-73
Northwood started fast to pull off a 15-point lead at the outset, taking the score to 20-5. Kearsney looked out of sorts in the first quarter, turning the ball over too easily and allowing Northwood to score too easily.
In the second quarter they fought harder, but as soon as they began making inroads into the score deficit, Northwood would hit an outside shot and undo the hard work. Kearsney went into half-time trailing 23-41.
The second half was better, with Kearsney’s players taking more responsibility, while looking for scoring opportunities close to the basket.
Unfortunately, the damage had been done, and they were not able to get close enough to trouble the Northwood team, to finish 53-76 down at the end.
Top Scorers
Kearsney – Njapha 10 points, Wise and Hastings-Brown 9
Northwood – Vacu 33 points, Chiliza 16, Iboegwu 8