The play-offs and finals for the Old Mutual Roedean School Water Polo Prestige Cup were played on 16 February, at Roedean School (SA).
The morning was dedicated to the play-offs between Group A and Group B. The first semi-final saw Roedean emerging as the victor over Crawford College with an exciting penalty shoot-out finish. A second semi-final followed with St Stithians College beating St Peter’s College.
The prestige cup started in September 2018 and this being its eighth year has seen it become a major event on the water polo calendar. Ten top Gauteng schools play out for the honour of winning the prestige cup, of which the underlying heart is community service.
The schools are divided into two groups with the initial round robin matches being played in September 2018 and January 2019.
Sponsored by Old Mutual, a pre-requisite for the schools competing in this tournament is to have a CSI learn-to-swim component. According to Kate Lowings from the Roedean Academy, “each school has partnered with an under-resourced school or community and has implemented a sustainable programme which teaches swimming and/or Water Polo at their partnership school or community. The prize money received by the top three schools is used to develop the learn-to-swim programme further in their partnership school.”
On the day of the play-offs, at midday, nine of the partnership schools brought children from their learn-to-swim programme. The children swam in a relay format for a set-time period. “Whilst the schools and the crowds cheered, these young swimmers swam their hearts out, loving being able to show case their swimming skills and the medals and certificates that they received. Old Mutual further sponsored all schools who participated in the swim-a-thon,” said Lowings.
The afternoon events kicked off at 12.45 pm with all of the schools in action at different times. Lowings said the weather held out for the final match of the day which pitted the in-form St Stithians team against home favourites, Roedean. St Stithians emerged as the victors and retained the prestige cup trophy for another year.
“At the end of the day, the real victors are all of the learn-to-swim children who are gaining confidence in their abilities in the water,” Lowings said.
Prize-giving followed the finals.
The final results were as follows:
1. St Stithians College
2. Roedean School
3. St Peter’s College
4. Crawford College
5. St Mary’s School
6. St Dominic’s School
7. Kingsmead College
8. Rand Park High
9. Parktown High
10. St Dunstan’s College
Details: Roedean School (SA) www.roedeanschool.co.za
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