MSA Alumni - WE 07/08/22

It’s been an action packed week for past and present students and also some of our past and present coaches have been in the lime light as well.  Let’s have a look at all they have done.

Commonwealth Games

Lucas Plapp became MSA’s first duel Olympic and Commonwealth games medal holder adding a Bronze in the 400m Team Pursuit at Birmingham to the Bronze won in Tokyo last year.  Lucas also competed in and placed highly in the Individual Pursuit, Points Race, Road race and Time trial.

Gronya Somerville and her partner finished 4th in the Women’s doubles losing the Bronze medal match 2-0 to India.  Gronya also made the round of 16 in the Mixed Doubles

Jacob Schueler made the quarter finals with his partner in the Men’s doubles

Celeste Mucci placed 7th in the final of the Women’s 100m hurdles in what was considered to be a World class field.  Celeste ran a Personal Best in the Semi’s.

And Lushavel Stickland competed for Samoa in the 50m Freestyle and Backstroke, the 100m Freestyle and relay events

Also congratulations to Nicole Richardson a former Marby Netball coach on her Commonwealth Games Gold as an Assistant coach of the Australian Netball Team. Brett Valance coached  Jemima Montag to a Gold medal in the 10km walk, while our own Darren Clarke coached Celeste Mucci to the final in the 100m Hurdles.

We Congratulate all on their amazing efforts.

Football/Soccer

We have had some amazing news in the past week in the World Game

2019 Graduate Polly Doran has signed a contract to play in the English WSL2 with Crystal Palace.  The Melbourne Victory fullback played 42 with Victory including back to back premierships in her 3 years with the club.  Polly has signed for the 22/23 season.

And Alana Cortellino was a part of the Junior Matilda’s team which won the Asian Football Federation U18 Championships over the weekend – Came on in 67 min

AFL

In the game between Gold Coast Suns and Hawthorn, Suns superstar Touk Miller had 21 touches and 7 clearances – Meanwhile for Hawthorn Emerson Jeka had 16 touches and 7 marks playing off a half back flank.

Essendon tall Peter Wright had 11 touches and kicked 2 goals in their defeat to the Giants.

Bulldogs v Dockers – Luke Ryan had 32 touches and 15 marks in Fremantle’s win over the Bulldogs with Rhylee West getting 6 Possessions.

Zak Butters had 28 touches and 8 tackles and kicked a goal in Port Adelaide’s loss to Richmond

Paul Curtis had 11 disposals and 5 tackles in Norths loss to the Swans

And Cam Rayner has had 16 touches and 6 Marks in the Lions defeat of the Blues

MSA Alumni win Gold and Silver at U21 Champs

Current and Past Maribyrnong Sports Academy students have competed and played major roles in Victoria’s success in the Men’s and Women’s U21 State hockey teams at the National Championship wrapped up in Perth last week.

In the Women’s final, Victoria won the Gold Medal defeating Western Australia in an exciting match - scores were level at 2-2 at full time, however Victoria brought home the Gold in a thrilling shoot out, prevailing 3-1 in a nail-biting finish.  

In the Men’s, the Victorians were crowned silver medallists, with Western Australia defeating Victoria 2-1 in a captivating display of Hockey with Cooper Burns scoring the only goal for the Victorians.  Cooper enjoyed a great Championships with 7 goals and he finished equal second highest goal scorer across the tournament.

Our congratulations to MSA Alumni who represented Victoria - Juliette Sheriff (Graduated MSA 2021), Alannah Hibbard (Graduated MSA 2020), Connar Otterbach (Victorian Team Captain – Graduated MSA 2019), Cooper Burns (Graduated MSA 2020) and Nye Roberts (Graduated MSA 2020),and Sam Lowndes (Year 12)

MSA Alumni WE 31/07/22

Commonwealth Games

Lucas Plapp has followed up his Bronze medal at the Olympic Games with a Commonwealth bronze medal nearly 12 months later.  Plapp was 1 of 4 riders in the Australian Teams Pursuit team beating Wales for the last spot on the podium.  Lucas also finished 8th in the Men’s individual 4,000m pursuit.  Lucas still has the 40km points race to go tonight.

Badminton, Gronya Somerville and Jacob Schueler have competed for Australia in the Teams event and went down to Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Indian teams in their group.  Gronya and her Women’s double’s partner beat Sri Lanka and the highly ranked India in their prelim matches while Jacob lost his singles match against his Pakistan opponent.  Jacob now moves onto the Men’s singles event while Gronya is set to play Mixed and Women’s doubles.

Former MSA Student/Athlete Lushavel Stickland is competing for Samoa in the Swimming in Birmingham.  Lushavel finished 6th in her heat at the 50m Freestyle event and finished 8th in her heat in the 100m Backstroke.  She still has the 50m Backstroke, 4 x 100m Freestyle and 4 x 100m Medley relay’s to compete in.

Celeste Mucci kicks off her Commonwealth games campaign this Friday.  Celeste is competing in the 100m Hurdles and 4 x 100m relay team.

AFL

Luke Ryan has 25 touches and 7 marks in Fremantle’s loss to Melbourne on Friday night.

Zak Butters had 25 touches and 5 marks in Port Adelaide’s loss to Collingwood

Buku Khamis had 13 touches and Rhylee West 10 in the Bulldogs lacklustre performance against Geelong at GMHBA station.

Touk Miller had another one of his high possessions games chalking up 31 touches and 10 tackles while Rory Atkins had 17 touches in the Suns close win against the Eagles.

Cam Rayner watched Richmond come from behind to beat the Lions at the MCG.  Cam had 16 touches and kicked a goal for Brisbane.

And finally in the game between Essendon and North Melbourne, Kayne Turner had 16 possessions and 5 Marks for North in their 18th loss of the year. For the victors, Peter Wright kicked 2 goals 1, had 13 touches, 6 hit outs and 8 marks.  Massimo D’Ambrosio had 13 touches in his return to the senior team.

Soccer

Alana Cortellino and the Junior Matilda’s have made it through to the semi’s at the AFF U18 Championships being played in Palembang, Malaysia.  The Junior Matilda’s ( The National U18 women’s football team) have defeated the Philippines, Malaysia and Myanmar to finish on top of the group heading into the finals. 

Congratulations to Naomi Chinnama who has made the final squad for the Australian team to play the FIFA U20 Women’s World Cup in Costa Rica starting on the 11th of August.  The Young Matilda’s will play Costa Rica, Brazil and Spain in their 3 preliminary games.

Tennis

Current MSA year 9 student Charlotte McGrath has returned from 3 invited ITF junior events that she competed in on the Gold Coast and in FIJI.  Playing Doubles Charlotte and her Partner Ava Beck lost in the second round of the tournament while in FIJI playing with partner Jessica Board they made the quarter-finals of both tournaments they played in.