The Score - 230823

From World Championships to World Cups our MSA Alumni have been once again showing the World what they can do.  Here are their efforts.

Firstly, before we get into this week’s results, we must mention that we have 2 Alumni in World Championships over the next few days.  Gronya Somerville is playing in the Badminton World Championships in Denmark.  She will be in the Women’s Doubles and Mixed Doubles. 

Celeste Mucci is in Budapest for the Athletics World Championships and will run her heat of the 100m Hurdles at 2.30am Wednesday the 23rd of August Melbourne time.  The race will be live on SBS.  Celeste is aiming to run a personal best time which is currently 12.84 seconds.

Athletics

Congratulations to former MSA High Performance Manger Brent Vallance who coached Jemima Montag to a silver medal in the 20k walk at the Athletics World Championships in Budapest.

Baseball

MSA Alumni Declan Speirs (Pic Above) and Current Year 10 student Jayden Kim have been selected for a second time in the Australian U18 Baseball team to play in the World Cup.  The tournament is in Chinese Taipei starting on the 2nd of September.

Netball

Over the past couple of weekends, we have had a great mix of current and past students and coaches, compete in the Victorian Netball finals.

MSA Alumni Kiralee Collings played in the U19 final as a co-captain for the City West Falcons coached by Hayley Cran.  The Falcons lost to Melbourne Uni U19’s team who had Current student Montaya Sardi, Akira McCormack who was named best player in the final, Tepaea Hobson and Sarah Mylrea-Norton as their coach.  Kim Borger lined up for the VNL Championship Winners the City West Falcons.

Special mention to Tepaea who is currently away competing in ANC (Australian Netball Championship) in Queensland. Tepaea was a late inclusion into the Vic team due to injury. This competition is made up of a lot of up-and-coming players currently playing SSN or on the fringe of being contracted! This is a fantastic achievement from our Tepaea. All games are streamed FREE on Kayo.

NRLW

Najvada George and her West Tigers had their 4th loss in a row after starting the season with 2 wins, this time to the Dragons by 4 points.  Najvada played 55 minutes and had 6 tackle breaks for a total of 26m gained post contact.  She had a season high 36 tackles and received the ball 21 times.

AFL

Brisbane v Collingwood

The Lions defeated The Pies by 24 points with Cam Rayner having 14 disposals, 4 tackles and kicking 2 goals 1 for the victors.

North Melbourne v Richmond

Paul Curtis had 16 possessions and kicked a goal for North Melbourne while his teammate Kayne Turner had 11 possessions and 3 tackles in their loss to the Tigers by 29 points.

Carlton v Gold Coast Suns

Rory Atkins continues his good form with 23 disposals and 389m gained while Touk Miler had 29 possessions, 8 tackles and 1 goal in the Suns 4-point loss to Carlton

GWS v Essendon

Peter Wright had 5 disposals in Essendon’s poor performance against the Giants going down by 126 points.

West Coast v Bulldogs

Former MSA student Harry Birch was one of 4 field umpires in this game.  Rhylee West had 11 possessions and kicked a goal for the Bulldogs in their 7-point loss to the Eagles.

Hawthorn v Melbourne

Joel Smith kicked 2 goals and had 7 possessions in the Demons 27-point victory over the Hawks.

Fremantle v Port Adelaide.

Zak Butters had 31 possessions, kicked a goal, and had 5 tackles for the Power in thier 16-point win. Luke Ryan had 25 possessions, 9 marks and 6 tackles for the Dockers.

Next week we will have an AFLW preview before Round 1, focusing on the MSA Alumni to watch in this year’s competition.

Looking forward to the 2024 Paris Olympics

We continue our look into the MSA Alumni who are a possibility of being a part of the 2024 Paris Olympics, which is now less than 1 year away.  This week we look at the sport of Taekwondo.

Reba Stewart (MSA class of 2019) and Leon Sejranovic (MSA class of 2020) are considered genuine contenders for a spot on the Australian team for the 2024 Paris Olympics.  For Reba it would be her second Olympics after being in the Australian team for Tokyo in 2021.  As a 20-year-old Reba suffered a first-round defeat at the hands of a Polish fighter who was ranked number 6 in the World.  While Reba’s confidence grew as the match went on, the damage on the score card was done early by her opponent, and the final score of 7 points to 2 wasn’t a true reflection of the entire bout.  Reba spent 4 months recovering from a back injury in the middle of 2022 and since then has been right into competition, recently winning a gold medal at the Kimunyong Cup in Korea and Bronze at the Korean Open.

Leon is shooting for his first Olympics and has also been in great form in the past 12 months.  He has won two gold medals in the past 2 weeks in Korea at the Korean Open and the Kimunyong Cup.  But the highlight for Leon was winning a bronze medal at the Taekwondo World Championships in Buku, Azerbaijan.  It was the first medal for Australia at a World Championships for 10 years and the first Australian Men’s able-bodied athlete to medal at the World Championships for 18 years. The 20-year-old defeating the World number 1 on his way to the Bronze.  Read more here.

There are some major competitions coming up for both athletes in the next 3-4 months including:

September 1-3 – Grand Prix, France 

October 10-12 – Grand Prix, China

October 14 – National Championships

November 28-29 – Pacific Games – Solomon Islands 

December 2-3 – Grand Prix, Great Britain

Both Reba and Leon are back at MSA and have been working as assistant coaches in 2023 in our Taekwondo program. They are a great inspiration to our current group of Taekwondo Athletes.

The Olympic selection process for Taekwondo runs from January 2024 to the final qualifying event in early April.  We wish them all the best in the next 9 months.

The Score - 160823

It’s been another great week for our MSA Alumni and our current students who continue to shine in the Sporting world.  Here’s how they went.

Golf

Stephine Bunque has finished tied for second at 4 under the card in her final event on the Ladies European Tour Access Series.  Playing in the Big Green Egg Swedish Open at the Varbergs Golf Klubb, Steph had 6 birdies and 2 bogies to finish with a 68 on the par 72 course.

Steph now heads home after 4 weeks in Europe and will start to prepare for the Australian Summer of Golf.

Taekwondo

Once again, our Taekwondo Alumni have done an amazing job at another international competition.  This time it was the Korean Open which became the backdrop for our Medal haul with Leon Sejranovic winning Gold on the first day of competition. Reba Stewart finished 3rd on day 2, winning the bronze medal.  Congratulations to our MSA Program head coach Will Afonczenko who had a round 16 finish.

Football

Polly Doran has signed a new one-year deal with the Crystal Palace Women’s team.

The 21-year-old right-back was a regular starter for Palace in her inaugural season in south London, making 26 appearances in all competitions – including 18 in the Women’s Championship – scoring once.  Polly telling the Crystal Palace Website she is happy to be staying in London. “I’m super happy to be signing with Palace for another year. The team is building something really special here, and I’m excited to be a part of it.

“My first year at Palace was really enjoyable – all the girls were super welcoming, and it made the move away from home a lot easier. I’m hoping, next season we can continue to build and be even more consistent, pushing for the top spots.”

Also, congratulations to our boys and girls football teams who have both made it through to the semi-finals of the Bill Turner Cup and Trophy competitions set to be played in Newcastle in 3 weeks’ time.

Athletics

Celeste Mucci is set to run in the 2023 Athletics World Championships in Budapest next week with the 100m Hurdles heats set down for next Wednesday Morning at 4.40am.  Celeste has been posting solid times in the lead up to the event, running a 12.87 in Switzerland just 2 weeks ago and missing her personal best by 0.03 of a second. 

NRLW

Najvada George played 64 mins in the West Tigers second loss of the season, losing  to the Cowboys 16-12.  Najvada made 31 tackles and had 2 tackle breaks, she received the ball 27 times for 2 offloads and ran the ball 145m.

Beach Volleyball

Former student Mitch Croft has finished 5th in the Youth Commonwealth Games Beach Volleyball competition held in Port of Spain, Trinidad and Tobago. And to keep with the MSA theme ex student Joey Yigit was the mens coach.

Basketball

Congratulations to Former MSA Athlete Sa Pilimai who has been announced in the Australian U16 men team to play at the FIBA U16 Men’s Asia Cup in Doha, Qatar.  Sa left Maribyrnong to head to the Institute of Sport and the NBA Global Academy. We wish Sa and the team all the best.

AFL

North Melbourne V Essendon

Paul Curtis had 10 disposals and 8 tackles while teammate Kayne Turner had 15 disposals and 4 tackles in North Melbourne’s 9-point loss to the Bombers.  Peter Wright had 10 disposals and kicked 2 goals 1 with 5 marks for the winners.

Sydney Swans v Gold Coast

Gold Coast captain Touk Miller and teammate Rory Atkins both had 22 disposals in the Suns 24-point loss to Sydney.

Brisbane v Adelaide

Cam Rayner kicked 1 goal 1 and had 12 disposals in Brisbane’s 1 goal win over the Crows.

Carlton v Melbourne

Joel Smith kicked a goal in his 5 possessions for the Demons who lost to the Blues by 4 points.

West Coast Eagles v Fremantle

Luke Ryan played his part in Freo’s 101-point demolition of the Eagles in Perth.  Luke had 19 disposals, 6 marks and a tackle.

Hawthorn v Western Bulldogs

Rhylee West had 10 disposals, 5 marks and 7 tackles in the Bulldogs 3-point loss to the Hawks. 

Port Adelaide v GWS Giants

 Zak Butters was back to his best again with 34 disposals and 9 marks for the Power as they went about consolidating their top 4 position on the ladder with a 51-point win over the Giants.

And congratulations to our Boys AFL team for making the final of the Herald Sun Shield last Wednesday against Parade College.  Unfortunately, Parade was too strong on the day going on to win by 27 points in a high quality game played in dry but windy conditions.  For Maribyrnong College it was our first ever Herald Sun Shield final.