Wellington College has successfully defended the McEvedy Shield at Newtown Park and in doing so won the historic athletics trophy for a 50th time.
In front of a large, colourful and well-behaved crowd at Newtown Park, Wellington won by 62 points. The final scores were: Wellington (221), St. Pats Town (159), St. Pats, Silverstream (112) and Rongotai College (56).
Wellington’s all-round excellence was the key ingredient in their triumph. Wellington won 22 of the 51 events staged. They won at every age group, with the under-14s grabbing 52 points, the under-15’s getting 44 and the open level 50. The under-16’s scored 75 points! Town could only manage 43 and the other two schools struggled to reach double figures.
There were several standout performers, but perhaps the most memorable were produced by juniors, Felix Williamson and Harry Jones.
Williamson smashed the field in the under-14 1500m and 3000m. In the first event of the day, Williamson lapped half of the field in the 3000m and signaled gleefully to his raucous schoolmates down the home straight.
Jones won the under-14 400m, 800m and hurdles.
Senior Isaac Miller-Jose was a triple winner in three open events. He captured the open high jump, triple jump and hurdles titles.
Other highlights for Wellington College included the close wins by Joshua Williams (under-14) and Ben Murphy (under-16) in the 100m.
There were only three records broken and all of them were achieved by St. Pats Town athletes. In the shot put Zion Trigger Faitele threw 15.33m to win the under-14 event by more than four meters and Josiah Lealamisa claimed the under-15 crown with a throw of 13.30m.
Both records previously belonged to Rongotai’s Denny To’o who won the open shot and discus. Denny’s brother Jaylin completed the same double success in the under-15 category.
On the subject of multiple successes Town’s Nathan Stirling scored more points than anybody else. He won the under-15 100m and finished second in four field events while Max Karamanolis claimed the under-16 1500m and 3000m double. Karamanolis’ win in the 3000m was outstanding. He ran 9.07.37 beating Simon Jessep’s (Wellington College) record time of 9:10.90 that had stood for 30 years!
Silverstream proved to be competitive on the track achieving nine wins. Team captain Max Press won the 800/1500m double and with a time of 157:00 in the 800m reinforced his status as a National contender.
In the open 200m Jacob Minshull, carrying an injury which required a moonboot last week, caught Yasheek Rosario on the line for a dramatic win. Both boys should feature prominently at Nationals in December.