By Elaine Kelly | Posted: Thursday November 30, 2023
Last night at Moana Pool, the OBHS Junior B Water Polo team took out the Dunedin Secondary Schools Championship trophy for the second time this year.
In Term 1 this young up-and-coming team also won gold but in Term 4 their win was even more impressive and convincing, with them only conceding one of the eight matches played. Having gained great recent experience against some commanding Southland teams in Invercargill, the team were able to ramp play up a notch, taking an early lead which meant they were 6-2 up at halftime. Focus was lost a bit in the third quarter which allowed the Taieri College Boys Makos to gain some traction leading to a nail-biting final quarter.
Blake Schofield was facilitated to score five of the eight goals through some excellent passes and Caleb Wayne, Neo Salomonsson and Todd Darling also came to the party with a goal each. These boys have played together for the past two years and have developed good communication in the pool, which is always key to a win in water polo.
A huge thanks goes to Paul Wagner from Otago Water Polo for coaching the boys, and also to the following senior boys who stepped into sub-coaching roles this year at different points - Tim Orchiston, Johnathon King and Aleks Kivilev. It's always great to see this kind of senior to junior mentoring paying off, showing us how powerful the brotherhood can be.
Team list:
Todd Darling
Toby Hill
Sam Hodges
Henry Hodgson
Oliver Jamieson
Luca Mirosa
Robbie Nichol
Neo Salomonsson
Blake Schofield
Dade Tredoux
Caleb Wayne