Winter Tournament Week 2023

September 8, 2023

Hillmorton High School is proud to announce that this year, a record-breaking seven teams represented the school at the Winter Tournament.

– Junior Boys Basketball – Dunedin – South Islands Junior Premier Tournament

– Junior Girls Basketball – Dunedin – South Island Junior Premier Tournament

– Senior Girls Hockey – Greymouth – South Islands Senior Girls Tournament

– Senior Boys Hockey – Greymouth – South Islands Senior Boys Tournament

– Senior Boys Football – Dunedin – South Islands Linwood Football Tournament

– Senior Girls Netball – Invercargill – South Islands Senior Netball Tournament

– Senior Boys Basketball – Dunedin – South Islands AA Senior Basketball Tournament

Junior Boys and Girls Basketball teams both finished top 4 in the South Island competing against 17/18 teams! Huge achievement.

The Senior Girls Hockey team had an amazing tournament making it to the final, finishing that game at a 3-3 draw and heading to shootout. Sadly, the girls lost at shootouts but were proud to take the Silver home.

This was the Senior Boys Hockey teams first ever tournament, boys had great overall results and experience finishing 7th in the tournament.

Senior Boys Basketball attended the AA Tournament for the first time, going against the top basketball schools from the South Island. The boys lucked out with a pool of death having top 5 Christchurch teams in their pool. Boys finished 19th overall.

Senior Football Boys went undefeated the whole tournament finishing 5th out of 20 teams! Congratulations to Aiden Kelly who received the tournament Golden Boot.

Senior Netball Girls performed extremely well, outranking their previous efforts in the tournament, placing 12th in B Grade.

Players recap of Tournament Week

● Junior Boys Basketball South Islands Tournament – Dunedin

This Tournament for us was mostly aimed to win it all but unfortunately didn’t go as planned. We tried our very best and gave all we had on the court. One thing I will take away from this tournament is if you believe in yourself and have dedication and pride and never quit you will be a proud winner. It was an amazing tournament and season with the boys.  Full credits to our wonderful coaches Dave Langrell and Dilshan for leading us to be successful young athletes.  Also huge thanks to all the parents behind the scenes working hard for us. It was an honour representing Hillmorton High School this year and I can’t wait for the upcoming years.  

By Junior Fuiava

● Junior Girls Basketball South Islands Tournament – Dunedin

The majority of our girls in the Senior Team were also fortunate to go down to Dunedin for Junior South Island Secondary School Regionals where we finished 4th out of 17 teams overall. We had four big wins to finish first in our pool and qualify for the quarter finals against Rangiora High School who we also beat.  Making the semi final against Middleton Grange School was exciting and new territory for us.  After getting off to an amazing first quarter lead, MGS fought back to win. However, we never gave up and appreciated the HHS Senior Boys’ Football Team coming along to support us. Whilst we didn’t make the final we are really proud of our effort to make the top four and know that we played as a team throughout the tournament. 

By Rubybelle Ferguson and Jaimee Seddon

● Senior Boys Football South Islands Tournament – Dunedin

We competed at the South Island Tournament and what a blast it was! We went undefeated the whole tournament and finished it off with a win against one of the top 8 sides in Christchurch: Burnside High School. 

Our goal was to improve with every half we played and I believe we did that. It was my last game as well as Murphy McMillian’s for Hillmorton High School and what an honour it has been. To Captain this group of boys was something important to me and I can sense something special is about to happen in the coming years. 

Thank you to Mr Dann, Mr Janssen and Mr Ainsworth for all the hard work they put into the team this year. Up the Taika!

By Alex Young