Water Polo – Vides Tournament 2009
St Andrew’s College produced an outstanding performance at the Vides Water Polo tournament held over the weekend at the Joan Harrison pool in East London. This is the oldest and one of the most prestigious schools’ water polo tournaments in the country, not to mention one of the most demanding with nine matches to play in just two days.
St Andrew’s started well on Friday with an 8 – 3 win over a strong Paul Roos side. They followed this with convincing wins over Port Rex (10-2), St Charles (14-1), Graeme (17-0) and Dale (16-0). In the final game of the first day they overcame the hosts Selborne 7-6 in an exciting game in front of a large home crowd.
St Andrew’s completed their pool games on Saturday morning with an 8-1 victory over Pearson, to win their pool and qualify directly for the semi-finals.
With Selborne beating Grey in the quarter-finals, St Andrew’s faced the hosts once again with a place in the final at stake. Selborne started strongly and led 2-1 at the break. However St Andrew’s took control of the game in the second chukka and ran out 5-2 winners, setting up a final against Reddam from Cape Town.
The final was very evenly matched with both sides producing some high quality water polo. Reddam scored first and led 2-1 at half time. St Andrew’s pulled level soon after the break, but then fell behind again as Reddam scored twice. With time running out, captain Jamie Gotz scored a fine goal, but Reddam held on to win the final 4-3.
By winning the silver medals, St Andrew’s achieved their best placing at the Vides tournament in many years, and will be looking to build on this performance at the St Andrew’s Shield and KES tournaments in the next two weeks.
In addition, in their first appearance in the tournament, the St Andrew’s 2nd team achieved a creditable 9th place, winning games against the first teams of Hudson Park (6-2), Jeppe (5-4), Woodridge (6-0) and Port Rex (7-0), and the Selborne 2nd team (6-3).
G Creese
