Garden International School, Issue 11, December 2016 Api Naga- Sports Newsletter Dragons, Secondary, Primary & CCA Sport Senior Girl Golfers achieve best finish in history for GIS at SEASAC
From the Athletic Director As the term draws to a close I can't help but reflect on the incredible efforts and achievements of all of the students throughout the term. This will be summed up in the final assembly of term. Moreover, I would like to take this opportunity to thank all of the coaches and staff for your hard work and support throughout the term. From next term the Sports Department are adopting a Sports for All approach. Every effort is being made to provide fixtures for all levels on the games field. One School, All Dragons 2
Golfers carve themselves into GIS history books After weeks of practice, the GIS Dragons golf team jetted off to Bangkok on Wednesday 23 November to compete in the annual SEASAC Golf tournament held at Thana City Golf Club, hosted by NIST International School. 13 players from year 8 to year 13, 2 coaches and a selection of parents landed in Thailand at 7pm and settled into the hotel rooms early, ready for the practice round the next day. We woke up to scorching sunshine and very little wind; perfect conditions for our golfers! We were presented with our black ribbons to show our respect for the late King Bhumibol and attended the early morning opening ceremony before getting out onto the course for our first taste of the Thana City Golf Course. Our golfers used the opportunity to test a few strategies and to get a feel for the course. Although the course was very long and presented a lot of water traps, the Dragons finished their rounds with renewed confidence and we returned to the hotel ready for the competition. 3
The conditions were, once again, perfect for golf on the first day of competition and the students were ready to go. The team were split into different fourballs, starting on the 1st or 10th tee and play got underway at midday, when the sun was at its highest! It was a long day, with many of the golfers finishing their round under floodlights, but they pushed hard and the team finished with some impressive numbers. Our top 2 girls; Min Li and Kit Yi, posted scores of +17 and +19 respectively and would go through to play in the championship tournament on Saturday lying in 3rd place. Our top 4 boys; Shanker, Nicholas, Shaun and Christian, posted rounds of +5, +6, +15 and +16 respectively to sit in 4th place going into the championship. There were great rounds from our other golfers as well, all playing close to or under their handicaps, with a notable PB round coming from Sabrina. They would battle it out in the consolation competition the follow day. There was a real buzz in the team at the start of the second day. The players competing for the championship teed off first and started strong. Through the first 9 holes, Shanker posted a strong 3 over and the rest were going well. Min Li also posted a strong 3 over par through the front 9 and both the boys and the girls team were moving up the leaderboard. Notably, Ryan Chia our youngest competitor posted a 4 over par through the first 10 holes! An amazing score considering his handicap of 24. Another impressive first 9 came from Serena, who posted 7 over. 4
The students pushed hard through a long day and all finished their rounds strongly. In the girls Championship, Kit Yi finished well to post +23 in her final SEASAC tournament and was followed in by Min Li, finishing with a PB +9. In the boys Championship, Shanker produced the performance of the day at +4, followed in strongly by Shaun and Nicholas, both posting +10 and Christian finishing on +26. In the consolation, Ryan Chia scored an amazing +13 and Lance made up 20 strokes from his previous round to post an impressive +27. Haymandhra and Jordan played well to stay in contention for the Nett score championship. Serena and Arianna improved considerably on their previous rounds and Sabrina followed her PB score from day 1 by finishing another solid round with the whole team cheering her in. At the end of a superb 2 day tournament, the Dragons were rewarded with silverware! The girls championship team of Kit Yi and Min Li had managed to claw their way up into 2nd place and deservedly received their trophy at the gala dinner with the rest of the girls. The boys championship team missed out on 3rd place by 3 strokes! So close in the end and we were all very proud of how they played. After posting her personal best +9, Min Li came 2nd in the girls gross score championship - an amazing achievement! And lastly, Ryan Chia blasted the rest of the competition away by producing a nett score of 61 (-11) and winning the nett score championship. What a great ending to a brilliant weekend of golf - the best ever results at a SEASAC Golf tournament. This group of GIS students supported each other throughout the whole tournament and displayed the highest level of sportsmanship throughout the 3 days. Thank you to the parents for your support and well done Dragons for another successful SEASAC Golf tournament. 5
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Swimmers attend Presidents Cup in preparation for ISAC Swimming With ISAC Swimming happening on 2nd and 3rd December, a small cohort of Dragons swimmers competed last weekend, for local swim clubs, in the prestigious President's Cup event. The Presidents Cup competition brings together the top swim clubs from across Malaysia to compete across 50m and 100m events. GIS swimmers predominantly supported local club Ikan Bilis SC with Kellyn also featuring for Sonic Swim Club. In total GIS has 9 swimmers take part in the event, amazingly they between them garnered enough points to crack the top 10! Incredible effort by the small team. 9
Mia O Leary got her season started with a bang, following a bout of injuries, Mia found herself atop the podium in Meet Record fashion in the 50m Breaststroke, 34.0, dropping a full second PB in the process. She also contested the 50m and 100m freestyle where she took Gold and Silver respectively, whilst managing a new PB in the 100m event. Li Wei Law was at her best as she was awarded top points scorer for club Ikan Bilis. She stormed to 2 Gold medals and 3 Silver medals. She continued her fine form in 50m breaststroke, beating her national title winning time from earlier in the year. Following that up with a big PB for 50m Back to earn gold. Silvers cam in the form of 100m Back, 50m Fly and a speedy split in the Mixed Freestyle relay (with Mia). Matthew Tang was also on a big PB chase as he managed a number of points scoring finishes. His most improved stroke, backstroke was the most successful, with 6th place finishes in both 50m and 100m. Matt claimed 7 PBs in 7 events!also in the points was Kellyn Choong. Kellyn made huge inroads in her fly events where she produced a massive PB in the 100m to claim a strong 7th place in 1.18.40. She also had a productive PB weekend with 8 in 8 races! In the hunt in the very competitive freestyle events was Anna Lau whose best swim came in the 100m Freestyle, breaking through 1.10 barrier for the first time as she managed a very respectable 7th place. Anna was another Dragon posting 8 PBs from 8 events. 10
Chasing after Anna was Natasha Foo, who was looking to continue her remarkable time improvements in the past 12 months. She managed a solid 24th place in 100 freestyle. Natasha also smashed 6 PBs with massive improvements on 100 Back and Breast. Recent GIS recruits Lee Sze and Yen Sze were also in PB form. Yen Sze produced a strong PB to take 22nd place in 50m freestyle, as well as a fine PB showing. Lee Sze also secured PBs and will have another year in the age group to look for those top 10 placings. Madison and Caitlyn Lew Tong also joined the weekend events, producing new PB swims. The Dragons now look forward to Friday and Saturday when ISACs rolls around. 11
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Senior Girls Touch Rugby perform superbly at ISAC event hosted by GIS On Tuesday 29th November GIS hosted the ISAC Touch Rugby Tournament 2016. 8 School teams contested the group stages under floodlights with a very high standard of rugby on display. GIS entered an U18A and a much younger U18B team with the intention of providing tournament experience and the opportunity for more girls to play. The U18A team started the competition superbly scoring 4 tries and beating Sunway 4-3 in a superb 24 minute match. The girls eventually finished 3rd in their group losing out to overall winners MKIS and ISKL JV. The U18B team gained much experience and performed admirably playing some tough opposition A teams including AISM and ISKL Varsity. A huge well done to all our players and coaches. 14
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Senior Cross Country Athletes travel to Singapore On Thursday 24th November the boys and girls Seasac Cross Country teams departed to Singapore to compete with 12 other schools. The boys team consisted of Julian Amani, Michael Doughty, Ian Hamad, Jack Allan and Ryan Ting whilst the girls team was Lauren Jenkins, Rachel Ng, Vanessa Lee, Carlotta Ceccarelli and Jazmin Johanssen. 17
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The first race was the individual 5k where the top four runners score for the team. The race took place on Coney Island, which had only just opened for public use. In the girls race Carlotta ran superbly to finish in 15 place, whilst Vanessa also produced a strong run to finish in 24th position. After day 1 the girls were placed in 7th position. On day 2 each team member run 3k in a relay format. All members of the girls team performed well here and Carlotta produced a fine anchor leg. When the relay was added to the scores from day 1 it placed the girls team in a highly commendable 6th position out of all the A teams. In the boys competition the team produced some consistent running in the 5k with Jack 30th, Ryan 29th, Michael 23rd, Julian 18th and Ian our highest placed runner in 17th. This was an impressive team effort from the boys and put them in 4th place after day one. In the team relay on day 2 the team started well with Julian running the team's fastest 3k leg in a time of 10.41 changing over in 3rd place. The team battled hard to keep in the medal positions, but unfortunately stronger runners from the other teams later on pushed GIS in to 4th place. This meant that the team consolidated their position and finished in an impressive 4th position overall. The teams were a credit to GIS all weekend and should be congratulated on some excellent performances and all the hard work they put into training. Well done to all involved 19
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Rugby becomes first Sport to include an U15C team in regular fixtures The U15A, U15B and U15C travelled to the university of Malaya to play against a series of friendly fixtures v BSKL. The U15C team started the ball rolling with some encouraging offload play against a much more experienced BSKL U15B team. Ashay Raj and Seth Thuraisingham both showed signs of threatening with the ball in hand although on both occasions were stopped just short of the opposition try line. The U15 B team played against BSKL A team and performed superbly in the first half resulting in GIS leading 17-7 at halftime. Tom Allen coordinated the attack well and Maurice Genied attacked the open spaces with pace to score a brace of tries. Unfortunately, even the defending of James Genied couldn't stop BSKL from scoring 3 tries in the second half as GIS narrowly lost 22-17. 22
The U15A team were last to play but it certainly was a case to leaving the best til last. It was the first run out for the U15A team and they certainly showed how much the training and hard work has paid off. A superb display of control, work rate off the ball, offloading and vision ensured that GIS ran in 6 tries eventually winning 38-0. The pick of the tries was a superb team try with Raphael Menard switching in support with Ben Doughty to score under the posts. This team has much potential...watch this space. 23
U19 s compete at ISAC Rugby tournament with young squad. ISAC U19 rugby. A young, new look Dragons team, with half of the team in Year 11 and Yohgern sporting a neat go-faster stripe (shaved into his head), boarded the bus to ISKL full of hope, anticipation and excitement. Fuelled on Cherry Tomato Bomb Twisties and Coca-Cola, the lads were ready for the first tournament of the season. First up were long time rivals Alice Smith, a school named after a lady. The game was hard fought but the experience and age of the Alice boys won out with them earning one of their 3 tries and simple mistakes and inexperience presenting the Alice boys with the other two. Against ISKL s A Team, the story was similar. The Dragons made their coaches feel a surprising, and somewhat unexpected surge of pride as they played with heart and intensity. But the general athleticism of ISKL s tank-like backline, with only four tries, proved that the heart and sheer determination of the GIS boys could hold them out and that with more experience, we will be a force to reckon with. 24
The final match was against ISKL s B team, who had held their A team in a close match that they only narrowly lost. They had players out there who had arms as big as legs and chests that would make Dr. Conte double take. The game was brutal with tackles flying in and a try-saving double tackle from debutant Ryan and Ian the Hammer Hamad saw them take out ISKL s speeding winger. But in the collision, Ryan and Ian clashed heads rendering them out for the rest of the match. In the dying seconds the Dragons won a penalty that was taken quickly, due to the quick thinking of Jack Ever-Ready Allen, and saw Johgern muscle over for the Dragons best, and only, try of the night. A narrow loss but it felt like a victory. A superb evening of rugby with performances to be proud of, lots of work to do but now time for a rest over Christmas. 25
Anjali Lim claims Top Female Athlete Award 2016 Anjali Lim (Year 10) has received an award from SUKMA for the top female athlete at the 2016 SUKMA games (swimming). This award is recognition of Anjali's commitment to sporting excellence. She will be flying to Bangkok on 6th December to represent Malaysia at the South East Asia Age Group Swimming Championships. Well Done Anjali 26
Follow GIS Primary PE on new twitter page for latest updates 27
GIS Sport Social Media Follow us @GISDragons and get the latest match day updates on hashtag #GISdragonupdates Follow the Primary PE Team and get the latest updates on https://twitter.com/gisprimarype Join our private Facebook Group to get updates about secondary students training fixtures, fixtures and other important information. https://www.facebook.com/groups/201978329836813/ Get all information about the GIS Programme https://gisdragonskl.com/ 28