St Columba’s Catholic College students are excelling in their chosen sport.
In athletics, Amity Buss competed at the Australian Junior Athletics Championships in March, representing Athletics NSW in the under 14 girls shotput, where she placed 13th. She also secured a third in the under 12 girls discus at the Little Athletics State Championships in March. In January she competed for Little Athletics NSW at the Trans-Tasman Challenge against New Zealand, winning a gold medal in field relay.
Jack Hamblin was third in the U17s 800m at the NSW Junior Championships and 12th in the same event at the Australian Athletics Championships.
Running is Kaitlin Bell’s forte. She was 12th in the NSW short course cross country, 15th in the NSW senior athletics cross country and 10th in the NSW Catholic Combined Colleges cross country.
Brenna Tarrant excels in AFL. At just 15 she was selected in the girls U18s Giants Academy, and recently represented NSW at tryouts for the U18s girls All Australian team.
Evie Norris loves competing in equestrian events. She has placed in the top 10 at state competitor mounted games, including a first in state show riding. At the state inter-schools showjumping she was third in about 80 schools present.
Georgia Thomas joined Global Martial Arts at Prestons under Olympic coach Ali Khalil last year to advance her sparring training for taekwondo and has never looked back. In May she went to her first international tournament in New Zealand where she achieved gold. Her Australian ranking is third, with the goal to improve her position with more international fights in the future.
Jackson Benveltzen is mad about cricket. He toured the United Kingdom with the Parramatta Academy in July, and has been called into the Parramatta Grade Club to trial for senior grade cricket. He has been the top scorer in the 15s age group in the Parramatta district.
Zach Konstantinoff is dedicated to swimming. At the Australian Age Championships in Brisbane in April he was 35th in the 100m breaststroke. At NSW All Schools he was third in the 50m breaststroke and at NSW State Age Championships he was 10th in the 100m breaststroke and seventh in the 200m breaststroke.
Also achieving in sport, but not pictured in the photo are Dylan Cox, Meg Jefferson and Owen Gordon.
Dylan was to represent Australia in August at the karate world titles on the Gold Coast. He is a black belt and is competing in the junior opens section. Dylan won regionals in June, and has been training for eight years.
Meg has hit great heights in basketball. She has achieved NSW All Schools state team selection, made the U18s NSW Metro State team, the AUSA (Australian) Hoops team and was third in the super 64 and first in the Adidas gauntlet – American tournaments in Texas to get a college scholarship. She played in the grand final for Penrith U18s representative team and was selected in the NSW State Performance training program.
Owen has raced at national level in mountain bike and road races. He is in the running for the Junior Australian Champion for Cross-Country Marathon races.
In August he was to head to Western Australia for round 5 of the Cross-Country Marathon series and to Canberra in September for the National Capital Tour Road Race.
He was third in the Woodford to Glenbrook Classic and fourth overall in the four-day Canberra Junior Road tour.
