MSA ALUMNI WE 041222

We have a lot to cover this week in our Alumni and current students report as we look back over the last two weeks of sport.  Check out these results.

AFLW.

Congratulations to Libby Birch who won her 2nd AFLW premiership, this time for the Melbourne Demons in their victory over the Brisbane Lions by 4 points.  Libby racked up 8 disposals and 4 tackles in a solid defensive performance.  Libby won her first AFLW premiership with the Western Bulldogs back in 2018.

Monique Conti won her 5th AFLW club best and fairest and her 4th for Richmond, making her the first player in AFL history to win 5 consecutive club best and fairest, having won the award at the Bulldogs in 2019 as well.

Congratulations to Jess Fitzgerald on her awards won at the Western Bulldogs best and fairest.  Jess was awarded the Coaches Award and the Community Award.  Jess also placed 5th overall in the Best And Fairest, won by Bulldogs superstar Ellie Blackburn.

Tennis

A massive congratulations to our boy’s tennis team who went to Albury and won the National School’s Competition.  It’s the first time our boys’ team has won the tournament since 2016.  Congratulations to Mark Sophoulis and his team of coaches and players on their achievement.

Badminton

Gronya Somerville has won the Victorian Championships Women’s and Mixed doubles over the weekend while Jacob Schueler won the men’s competition.

A League W

Aimee Medwin came on to the field in the 11th minute for Western United’s in their 2-1 win over MelindaJ Barbieri’s Adelaide’s Untied.  MelindaJ came on for United in the 63rd minute.

Naomi Chinnama came off in the 71st minute for Melbourne City in their  3-0 win over the Brisbane Roar.

Polly Doran has scored her first goal for Crystal Palace in the 39th minute in her teams 1-0 league victory over Lewes. 

Cricket

Fergus O’Neill was part of Victoria’s Sheffield Shield win over the arch enemy NSW over the weekend.  Fergus made 16 and 25 with the bat and took 1/51 and 0/16 in the second innings.

Golf

Steph Bunque finished 15th in the Women’s Australian Open played at Victoria Golf Course.  It was a world class field which included the British Open winner and the World ranked number 5, fellow Aussie Minjee Lee.  Steph started off with a 3 under par 69 at Victoria and then fired a 78 at Kingston Heath in the second round.  She recovered extremely well in the final two rounds at Victoria scoring a 70 and 72 finishing even for the card over her 4 rounds, 12 shots from the leader.

Weightlifting

Congratulations to Teagan Newman on winning silver in the Australian Weightlifting Championship 76kg category.

US Sports

A big week over Thanksgiving in Lexington, Kentucky for MSA Alumni the Berry brothers.

Oscar played with the University of North Florida basketball team against the University of Kentucky in front of 20,000 at Rupp Arena.

While Wilson played with the University of Kentucky football team against the University of Louisville in the Kentucky Governor's Cup (26-13 win) in front of 60,000 at Kroger Field. 

MSA Alumni WE 201122

As the AFLW season starts to wind down the A-League Women’s season kicks off and we have Alumni in both.  See how they are going.

AFLW

Melbourne has defeated North Melbourne to make it through to the AFLW Grand Final.  The Demons beat the Kangaroos by 17 points.  For Melbourne Libby Birch was solid in defence with 13 Disposals and AMY had a quiet day with 7 possessions but remains a tackling machine with 7 tackles on the day

Melbourne now heads to Springfield in Ipswich for the Grand Final of the AFLW against Brisbane.

Congratulations to Monique Conti who has been named the AFLW Player of the season judged by the AFLW Media with 23 votes.  Georgie Prespakis was the next best MSA Alumni finishing with 14 votes.

In the AFLW Best and Fairest award Mon Conti finished second with 19 votes, 2 behind Brisbane’s Ally Anderson in a thrilling count on Tuesday night.  Monique and Georgie were also both named in the midfield for the AFLW All Australian team. 

Football…

Naomi Chinnama started at Centre back for the Melbourne City in their 4-1 away win against Wellington.

MelindaJ Barbieri came on in the 79th minute in Adelaide United’s 1-0 win over Sydney FC.

Congratulations to Annabel Martin who has resigned with Wellington Phoenix Women’s team and MelindaJ Barbieri for signing with Adelaide United for this seasons A-Leagues Women’s competition

Polly Doran came on the field at the 90th minute to be a part of Crystal Palace’s loss to Charlton 2-1.

Volleyball

 Lorenzo Pope’s Modena Volleyball in the Italian Supa League has had another win, this time over Prisma Volley 3-1.  Modena are now equal 4th on the standings.

Badminton

In the Australian Open for Badminton, Gronya Somerville was knocked out in the round of 32 in the Women’s and Mixed Doubles. 

Gridiron

MSA Alumni Adam Korsak has just set a record for the most punting yards in College Football History in Div 1 of the NCAA.  On top of that record Adam also has the following distinctions for this year,  NCAA record for NET punt, -10 punt return yards this season, 3 times captain for Rutgers football and a streak of 150 punts without a touchback. 

Taekwondo

Reba Stewart lost in the round of 32 in the 73+kgs division to Matea Kolovrat of Croatia in the Taekwondo World Championships in Mexico..

Staff Changes at MSA

Maribyrnong College and Maribyrnong Sports Academy would like to announce some staffing changes that have been made here at the academy in the past couple of weeks.

As we do with our Student Athlete’s, we encourage our staff also to strive for the best, and always look to better themselves in their career, and recently a couple of our staff have decided to do just that.

In our AFL department we have said goodbye to our head AFL coach Robbie Chancellor who has accepted a position with AFL club the GWS Giants in Sydney to be their Head of Development.  This has meant we have had to look for a new AFL Head Coach and we are pleased to announce that the role will be filled by Danny Sexton. 

Danny was coach of the Calder Cannons and Northern Knights in the TAC cup competition until 2006 when he joined St Kilda firstly as the club’s development manager, then an assistant coaching role before being announced as the Director of Coaching in 2016. Danny has also held the role of Footy Operations Manager at the Saints.

Meanwhile MSA AFL Coach & PE Teacher Hayley Gossow has accepted a role with the AFL as Head of the Girls program at the Western Jets.  Hayley will leave us shortly.

We wish both Robbie and Hayley all the best in their new roles and welcome Danny to MSA.

After the departure of our MSA Head of Strength and Conditioning, Calvin Pane to the Western Bulldogs, Todd Carlon stepped in as acting head of S & C for the second half of the year.  After a process which saw an amazing calibre of candidate apply for the position, we are proud to announce that Robert Le Guen has accepted the position of Head of Strength and Conditioning here at MSA 

Robert is qualified at the Masters level and his background includes being an athlete himself who moved from Melbourne to the USA on a College Scholarship which resulted in him being a member of a Lacrosse National Championship winning team.   Post College, Robert has worked in a variety of sports in the College system as an S&C Coach including soccer, American football, softball, baseball, track and field, basketball, golf, and tennis at both Hofstra University and the University of South Florida (both NCAA Div 1 Colleges).  

Robert has just finished working with English Premier League Club Manchester City as the Lead S&C Coach for the Youth Development Phase in its Academy program and has also worked with the English Football Association (FA) as a physical performance consultant.   We welcome Robert to MSA.

Finally, we also welcome Sara Hasani as our physiotherapist here at MSA.  Sara has been in the AFL system for the past 12 years as a physio at both St Kilda and the Western Bulldogs.