Glasgow Gaelic School Sports Blog

Monday, 4 July 2016

S3/4 Team 4th in Glasgow Schs' Division 1 League

The S3/4 Netball team finished 4th in Division 1 of the Glasgow Schools Netball League. The S3/4 age group was split into two divisions based on the performance at the Glasgow Tournament back in October. Throughout their fixtures the S3/4 team played the best netball the school has produced. The team which is made up mostly of S3s now has good experience for the league next year. Here's a round up of how the players performed throughout the year:

Christy

Christy has improved her defensive skills at Goal Keeper this year. She reads the game well and her marking has been excellent. Her distribution from throw ins has improved a lot this year too.

Katrin

Despite only in her second year of playing netball Katrin is one of our most consistent netballers. She can play any position but is asked to play Goal Defence due to her good marking and timely interceptions. She can quickly turn defence into attack with some powerful long passes to the shooters.

Yvonne

Yvonne has played well this year at GK, GD and WD. Her rebounding and defensive positioning was been important to the team as well as her ability to play in any position.

Daisy

Daisy has been consist this year. She's been playing a relatively new position at Wing Defence. This has been due to her good defending and her movement to get free for the ball from centre passes and throw ins.

Sarah

Sarah has mainly played centre this year. Her high levels of stamina are key to us maintaining a fast paced game. She moves up and down the court well and her eagerness to get on the ball is key to keeping possession and getting the ball to the shooters.

Morag

Although Morag is one of SGG's best shooters she also is arguably the schools best wing attack. She was asked to play wing attack more often that not this year and she was excellent in each game. She again played the most minutes for the school for the second year in a row.

Lauren

Lauren played both centre and goal attack this year. Her shooting this year was key to us winning some close games against All Saints and St Thomas Aquinas. As the team captain she was excellent in motivating the team to play their best.

Aimee

Aimee has again improved at shooting for the second year having played both Goal Attack and Goal Shooter. Her movement to get free from defenders is getting a lot better as too is her rebounding. Still in S3, I'm looking forward to seeing how she performs in S4.

Tamlin

Her movement inside the circle is very good. She uses clever footwork to get herself in the best shooting position and importantly for the team her rebounding under the stand is excellent.

With Lauren, Tammy, Christy and Yvonne all moving on to S5 the team will be completely different next year. Although the S2s haven't played in a league yet, they have a handful of players who have the potential to steal some places away from the S3s. Add that to the fact that we have 14 or so girls from S3 who play netball regularly at training each week, then next year will be the most competitive squad of players for the S3/4 age group that we've ever had. Keep practicing over the summer holidays.

Wednesday, 29 June 2016

Prize-giving 2015-16

A big congratulations and thank you to all the PE prize winners 2015-16. Excellence and Effort awards were given to both boys and girls classes for each PE year group. Also, sports prizes awarded by the coaches and players were handed out along with special merit awards for excellence, commitment and achievement:

Netball Player of the Year

S1 Netball Team Annabel MacDonald S2 Netball Team Eilidh McDougall. S3/4 Netball Team Lauren McDougall

Netball Players' Player of the Year

S1 Netball Team Annabel MacDonald

S2 Netball Team Eilidh McDougall

S3/4 Netball Team Morag McKirdy

Athlete of the Year

Girls Eilidh McDougall

Boys Daniel Moran

Players Player of the Year

Boys Football Jackie Banfield

Girls Football Erin Moran

Football Player of the Year

Boys Robaidh Whyte

Girls Eilidh Brown

Top Goalscorer Jamie MacInnes

Sporting Excellence Awards

Boys Daniel Moran

Girls Amy Craig

PE Commitment Award

Daisy Maguire

Achievement in Sport

Jacob Connelly

His performance in both core and certificated Physical Education this year has been outstanding.

This year he achieved the school's highest ever mark for the one off performance (practical exam) at National 5 PE.

He works very hard to improve his performance in all sports.

A two time individual medallist at the Glasgow Schools Athletics Championships

A member of the S4 Team who were second in the Glasgow Schools Cross Country Championships. Jacob was 4th in the individual race.

Jacob won the Garscube Schools' Cross Country Championships in November.

A member of the S3/4 Cross Country team who were 4th at the Scottish schools XC in March.

Jacob competed at the Scottish Schools Indoor Athletics event and ran a 3 second personal best in the 400m.

Highlights of 2015/16

What a year of sport it has been at SGG. Undoubtably the best year of sporting performances the school has ever had. Here's some of the highlights:

https://flipagram.com/f/qpf0umAK0O

Glasgow Schools Netball League Champions

The girls played the netball league playoff (top vs second) against Holyrood at the Emirates arena on Wednesday 1st June. The girls knew that this would be a tough game against the best netball school in Glasgow and one of the best in Scotland. Both teams would be looking to take home the title in this winner takes all match.

The game stayed with the better netball in the first half being played by Holyrood. They passed and moved the ball well with their goal attack playing exceptionally well. The third quarter SGG played their best netball of the game. Annabel and Abigail started to link up well together dominating possession. This provided with Seona a lot of opportunities. Although marked by a very good GK, Seona was able to find space and score 5 points in the third quarter...(she did say at half time she was going to do this). In the final quarter both teams gave all their effort to win the match. Holyrood were given lots of opportunities to get back into the game which they did which made the last 3 minutes very nervy for SGG. The final whistle sounded with the result being 19-16 to SGG. A great game by both teams.

Well done to the S1 girls who created history by becoming the first team from the school to win the Glasgow Schools Netball League. Played 9 games, won 9 games. The school has been playing netball for 3 years and this is only the second year the school has entered the league. Next year the school will be entering the Scottish Schools' Cup for the first time. With no facility to play home games the school will hopefully be able to use the Kelvin Hall for some of their games next year.

The following girls played for the school throughout the year:

Annabel

Alison

Abigail

Anna

Seona

Sileas

Iona

Eilidh

Evie

Mirren

Sophie

Niamh

Mia

Rachael

Shona

Scottish Schools Track and Field

The school entered the Scottish Schools Track and Field Championships for the first time. 6 athletes went: Shona and Annabel S1, Eilidh S2, Daniel S3, Lewis and Jacob S4. All athletes competed very well on the National stage and should be proud of their performances. Here's some action shots from the Saturday with Annabel in the long jump and Eilidh in the 100m.

Glasgow Schools Adventure Race

The school finished 3rd at this year's Glasgow Schools' Adventure Race. The school performed very well across most of the disciplines but were stuck for a long time on the team challenge which cost them the valuable minutes. Despite this, the boys tried their hardest throughout all the events to finish up as high as possible. The same team can still

compete for the next two years at this event which is great news. The mainly S3 girls team finished in the top 15 which was impressive as it was nearly 10 places higher than last year's all girls team. Well done to you all for your excellent performance.

Sports Day 2016

Sports Day went very well this year with lots of competitive athletic events and some fun mass participation relays too. All performances counted towards the overall inter house competition. Hiort for the 2nd year in a row won sports day with Ronaigh very close behind in 2nd place, Scarp were 3rd and Miughaigh in 4th.

Glasgow Schools Athletics Championships

The school had arguably it's most successful sporting day ever at the Glasgow Schools Athletics Championships. Last year we thought 4 medals was going to be the best the school could achieve for a long time but this year our athletes absolutely smashed that record taking home 10 medals!!!

Lewis Grimmer who had never competed at the Glasgow Schools Championships before but this year he was entered in two events this year and what a day it was as he took home two medals! His performance in the senior boys 800m (he's still in S4) was superb! He paced the race perfectly, coming off the bend in the home straight and changing gears to take the victory. He then had to quickly go to the high jump. He was of course fatigued after the 800m but still managed to jump 1m68 to take bronze.

Eilidh added her 2nd 100m medal to her collection by coming in 2nd place in the final of the S2 race. She ran very well, getting a better start in the final and made the Hutcheson girl work all the way to the line.

Daniel who finished 3rd last year in the 1500m was going into this race with a bit more confidence having won the Glasgow Schools XC Championships in February. Although not a club runner but a competitive footballer, Daniel shows a level head when in a race. His pacing, tactics and sheer determination shown in the 1500m final resulted in him crossing the line in 1st place. Congratulations to Daniel on what has been a fantastic year for him in athletics.

Erin Houston who's first ever hurdles race was in the heats at the Glasgow Schools Championships. She qualified comfortably and then ran even better in the final to take home the bronze medal. The PE department are delighted for Erin who has shown a fantastic attitude and put in a lot of effort in sport since returning to SGG.

Two years ago when Robyn was in S1 she failed to qualify for the Shot Putt final at the same championships. This year she took home the bronze medal! She decided to play it safe and do a standing throw which makes her bronze medal even more impressive.

Cailean who was making his outdoor track and field debut for the school took part in the Triple Jump. Having never jumped into a pit before Cailean only had 3 jumps to get it right. He managed to do this securing the bronze medal in his final jump.

Josh was the first on the track for SGG taking part in the very difficult 400m Hurdles. Even more difficult considering Josh had never done a 400m before or raced over hurdles over any distance. That didn't stop him from putting in a brilliant performance and taking home the Gold medal in the process.

Annabel who's in S1 is keen on athletics and showed at the Giant Heptathlon that she is a very good all round performer, sprints, endurance and jumps. She did both the 200m and Long Jump, medalling in the long jump with 4m25 and finishing 4th in the 200m final. Well done Annabel.

Similar to Daniel, Robaidh is a footballer but shows good potential at running and is very determined. Robaidh running his first ever 1500m found the race challenging but did very well to take home a bronze medal in the process. His time was very impressive, so impressive in fact that he would have medaled in the senior boys 1500m.

Other stand out performances included the S2 girls relay team finishing 4th in the final. Shona finishing 4th overall in the 800m time trials. Lewis C was 5th overall in the S2 800m. Andrew C S3 running a big pb in the 800m. Devyn 6th in the S2 boys Shot Putt. Erin Moran qualified for the S2 girls 200m final although injured. James Diamond was 6th in the boys Long Jump final. Very well done to all the athletics team for an outstanding performance.

Toryglen Football Summer Cup Winners

Congratulations to the S2/3 Boys Team who won the Toryglen Summer Cup.

Tuesday, 12 April 2016

International Netball Tournament at Disneyland Paris

So the school had its first ever Sports Tour this year! On the 30th March 20 pupils and 2 teachers traveled to Paris for the International Netball Tournament. We had two teams an U14 team and an U16 team enter the competition. The trip involved three days of netball in total with two of those days dedicated to tournament games and the other a coaching day from England Netball coaches. Along with the netball the girls got to go to Disneyland Paris, so all days of the trip were action packed! The netball the girls played was exceptional. They were sometimes up against teams who were more experienced but the girls certainly raised their game. Both teams were playing against older girls but this did not faze them. The S1/2 u14 team finished their tournament finishing in 2nd place. The S3/5 u16 team finished in 2nd place!! Both teams performed very well and showed great team spirit throughout. Here's a selection of photos from the trip. Thanks to Mdm Jebbari for accompanying the girls on the trip.

Scottish Schools Cross Country Championships

Due to the improvement of the pupils at SGG in cross country (and athletics in general) we have been entering athletes into scottish schools events this year for the first time. Two weeks after the Glasgow Schools' Championships 12 athletes from the school traveled down to Irvine to compete on the national stage. With a change of date in the fixture for this event from a Saturday to a Wednesday allowed more schools to enter which resulted in over 1600 pupils from across Scotland taking part on the day. Getting into the top 100 in a race would prove to be challenging enough as the fields for each race were packed.

Here's how our pupils got on:

D Girls
110th Shona Carey

D Boys
57th Robaidh Whyte
123rd Patrick Connor

C Boys
83rd Calum Stewart
91st Lewis Conley
103rd Findlay Dickson

B Girls
69th Amy Craig

B Boys
58th Daniel Moran
64th Jacob Connelly
84th Lewis Grimmer
99th Conall Whyte
110th Benjamin Campbell

The B boys team had an excellent performance on the day and finished 4th team! That's 4th best cross country team in Scotland. Well done to the boys and congratulations to all competitors from SGG.

Remaining Netball League Matches

The S1 and S3/4 Netball Teams play their last netball league fixtures on Tuesday 19th and Wednesday 20th April. The team selections for these fixtures are:

S1s vs Rosshall 19/4

Annabel (c)