MSA Tennis in straight sets.

Maribyrnong Sports Academy congratulates our Tennis department for it’s award last night as the most outstanding school of the year in Victoria at the Victorian tennis awards 2023.

We are also proud of our head coach Marc Sophoulis who won the Coaching Excellence award for Development.

It been a big year for our tennis program which has included students traveling overseas to pursue an improvement in their world rankings.  Head coach Marc Sophoulis says he is so proud to claim both the individual and school awards. “We are truly honoured and grateful to be awarded the Most Outstanding School award for 2023 from Tennis Victoria.  As a school we pride ourselves on creating an inclusive environment that helps our student-athletes strive to reach their goals whilst becoming outstanding citizens in the community. We aim to provide life lessons through our training sessions, and we are so proud of the students who turn up every day and give their absolute all.” Sophoulis said, “I’m also absolutely humbled to be recognized as the Coaching Excellence Development Coach of the Year Victoria.  A big thank you to Tennis Victoria for this incredible honour.”

MSA Sports Director Mark McAllion says the award is a validation for the work that is done here at MSA. “We have many individual students win awards for the work they put into their chosen sport, but we rarely get recognition for an entire Academy group.  This award is wonderful recognition for the staff and student-athletes in the tennis program, who work incredibly hard to be better each day.”  

Well done to all students, coaches and staff involved in our Tennis Program here at MSA.

The Score 171023

It’s been a big week for MSA Alumni with summer sports here in Australia all starting to come online. Here are our Alumni performances.

Cricket

Congratulations to MSA Alumni Farzan Chowna on making his debut century in Victorian Premier Cricket over the weekend.  Farzan came in at number 3 in the order and came into the game when Essendon lost their first wicket for 91 runs.  He remained 118 not out with Essendon finishing 4/374 from their 90 over.  His 118no came from 176 balls with 13 fours. 

Melbourne Marathon

Congratulations to Bianca Puglisi on completing the Melbourne half marathon finishing in fourth place in the Women’s section.  Some stats on Bianca, she finished the half marathon (21.1kms) in a time of 1.16.9.  See was 4th out of 4,706 females who ran the half marathon.  She was 46th of the 10,056 people who ran the half marathon, and she won her age group being 20-24 females.

Badminton

Gronya Somerville and her Mixed Doubles partner Kenneth Choo were defeated in the final of the 2023 Yonnex Bendigo International.  After winning the first set Somerville and Choo drop the second and third losing the final to the Chinese Taipei pairing 12-21, 21-14, 21-11.  Unfortunately, Gronya didn’t get on the court in the Women’s doubles as her partner pulled out due to injury.

Football

Congratulation to the following players who have recently signed contracts with professional clubs. 

·       Jake Nadjovski – Contract extension for Western United. 

·       Matthew Grimaldi – Signed new Scholarship contract for Western United.

·       Zac Kocankovski – Signed Professional Contract with Macedonian First Division Club Bregalnica Stip.

Connor Metcalfe started for Australia in defence, in their game against England at Wembley Stadium on Saturday Morning.  Australia went down in the friendly 1-0.  They next play New Zealand in Brentford.  These games act as a warmup, prior to the round of World Cup Qualifiers starting in November.

Polly Doran started for the Chrystal Palace Women’ s team on the weekend after a stint with the Australian U23 team in Italy.  Chrystal Palace defeated London City 6-1.

In the A-League Women, Naomi Chinnama remained on the bench for Melbourne City’s 1-0 win over Wellington, she is also back from the Italy cam with the U23 women’s team.  Annabelle Martin started for the Central Coast Mariners in their 1-0 loss to Newcastle.

The A-League men’s competition is set to start this weekend.

Hockey

Cooper Burns opened the scoring for Melbourne Hockey Centre in their clash against Adelaide in the National Hockey One Competition.  The Melbourne Hockey Centre lead 2-0 early in the 3rd quarter before Adelaide went on a rampage and scored 3 late goals to win.  Connor Otterbach and Nye Roberts were also a part of the team for MHC.

AFLW – Round 7

Adelaide Crows v Western Bulldogs – Crows by 42 points

Bulldogs – Jess Fitzgerald had 21 Disposals, 1 mark and 2 tackles.

St Kilda v Giants – St Kilda by 13 points

St Kilda – Georgia Patrikios had 20 disposals, 4 clearances and 5 tackles.

Geelong v Fremantle – Geelong 24 points

Geelong – Georgie Prespakis had 25 disposals, 8 tackles and 6 clearances.

Sydney v Hawthorn – Hawks by 14 points

Hawthorn – Charlotte Baskaran had 7 disposals and 7 tackles in the win for the Hawks.

Richmond v Essendon – Essendon by 17 points

Richmond – Monique Conti had 27 disposals, 8 tackles and 2 marks .

Essendon – Georgia Nanscawen had 21 disposals, 10 tackles and 1 mark.

North Melbourne v Port Adelaide – North by 63 points

North Melbourne – Amy Smith has 11 disposals and a mark in North’s big win.

West Coast Eagles v Narrm

Narmm – Libby Birch had 7 disposals, 3 tackles and 4 marks in Melbourne’s win.

Injury List into round 8

Sydney – Aliesha Newman – Concussion – Test

Richmond – Elle McKenzie – Ankle – 3 to 4 weeks

The Score 101023

Our Past and Present Students have had another great week in sport. Here’s their performances

Football

Congratulations to Connor Metcalfe who has once again been selected in the Socceroos squad, this time for the upcoming London internationals against England at Wembley Stadium and New Zealand in Brentford.  Meanwhile Connor scored for his Bundesliga 2 club FC St Pauli in the 95th minute of their 5-1 win over Nurnberg.

Polly Doran scored 1 of the 4 goals scored by Chrystal Palace in their 4-0 win over Blackburn Rover.  Her goal in the 71st minute of the game was from an assist in front of goal and Polly made it look easy.

Hockey

Cooper Burns and Connor Otterbach have both played for HC Melbourne in their opening game of the 2023 Men’s JDH Hockey One League.  The season opener was away to the Tassie Tigers with Connor scoring the opening goal for HC Melbourne on the way to a 4-1 victory.  Former Olympian and MSA PE Teacher Andrew Smith has taken the role of Head Coach with the team with Nye Roberts also a member of the 22-man squad.

Congratulations to Cooper and Nye who have also been selected in the Burras U12 team to play in the Sultan of Johor Tournament as preparation for the Junior World Cup taking place later this year.

Judo

Over the School Holidays 2 of our current students went extremely well in Judo Competition here in Australia with the National School Championships followed by the Queensland Open (National Event Series).

Year 8 student Akos Kelly won a Gold Medal at the National school champs and Silver at the Queensland Open in the Senior Boys Category.  While Year 12 student Ruby Gojevic won a Bronze at the National Schools, a gold medal in Queensland in the Juniors and was placed 5th at the Queensland Open Senior Women’s competition.

We also note a fantastic effort by former student Danny Vojnikovich who won gold in the junior and senior men division at Queensland Open for his first competition back after ACL surgery. Danny has now been selected to represent Australia at the Pacific Games in November.

Ryley Rametta recently competed at Pan-American Oceania Junior Championships in Canada where she won Silver.   From this performance Ryley was selected in the Australian Judo team that will compete at the Pacific Games in the Solomon Islands in November.   This will be the first time Australians have competed in Judo at these Games.

Basketball

Congratulations to Sa Pilimai who was part of the Australian Under 16 team to win a gold medal at the Asian Cup.  Sa, who is now a part of the Centre of Excellence in Canberra has had a growth spurt and is now 7 foot 2 or 218cm.

Golf

Our current golfing students have done very well at the Junior Vic open.  Charlie Roylance won the Boys U16 event while Kirk Kryskow won the U14 event.  Seabil Leong finished 5th in the U16 Girls event.

AFL

Zak Butters won his first John Cahill Medal for Port Adelaide.  This tops off an amazing year – Zak was awarded All-Australian selection; AFL Coaches’ Association Player of the Year; Most Courageous Award and finished equal-fourth in the Brownlow Medal.

AFLW – Round 6

Western Bulldogs v Carlton – Carlton by 19 points.

Bulldogs – Jess Fitzgerald collected 7 disposals and kicked 1 goal 1.

Narrm v Adelaide Crows – Crows won by 10 points.

Narrm – Libby Birch had 6 disposals, 2 marks ad 3 tackles for the match.

St Kilda v Hawthorn – St Kilda by 9 points.

St Kilda – Georgia Patrikios had 17 disposals and 5 tackles in the Saints win.

Hawthorn – Charlotte Baskaran had 14 disposals, 1 mark and 12 Tackles for the Hawks.

Port Adelaide v Sydney – Swans by 15 points.

Sydney – Aliesha Newman had a quiet day with just 4 possessions.

Essendon v Geelong – Bombers by 10 points.

Essendon – Georgia Nanscawen had 25 disposals, 2 marks and 7 tackles for the victors.

Geelong – Georgie Prespakis had 26 disposals, 10 clearances and 7 tackles for the Cats.

Richmond v Gold Cost Suns – Suns by 1 point.

Richmond – Monique Conti had 22 disposals, 5 marks and 2 tackles for the Tigers.

Walyalup (Fremantle) v North Melbourne – Kangaroos by 45 points.

North Melbourne – Amy Smith had 10 disposals and 5 tackles for North in their win.