Athletics Qualifiers - Girls

On the 28th May 2016, the northern region’s qualifier rounds of athletics were hosted by Mpelembe School. There were 7 schools competing from the region: Simba School, Mpelembe, the hosting school, Lechwe School, Kalulushi Trust School, Chengelo School, Trident College and Amano Christian School. It was a long day packed with many different track and field events. Amano had three sets of girls’ teams to participate in all age groups. There were the under 14 girls that consisted of five girls, under 16 girls and under 19 girls that consisted of 4 girls each.

A few of the girls were new to the team and to the sport so it was a new experience for them. The majority of the girls that were participating qualified in the events they were assigned to do. A lot of effort and hard work was put in all the races, throws, and jumps done, which earned us the points that contributed to the final Amano team’s score. Many different talents were showcased and many others were revealed through the long day.

With all the effort put in by each member of the team, the Amano athletics team earned 516 points and came 4th out of 7 schools. [Chengelo 650pts ; Mpelembe 554pts; Trident 531pts ; Lechwe 482pts; Simba 334pts and Kalulushi 319pts.]
Even though it was a long event, what made it memorable and a day packed with enjoyable moments, was having a good time in competitive sport.

I would just like to say a big thank you to the girls that put in the immense effort. I’d also like to thank Mr Grove for organising and putting together the entire event.

Reported by: Janki Desai (athletics captain)

Regional Athletic Meet - Boys

On Saturday the 28th of May we traveled to Mpelembe Secondary School for this year’s 2016 athletic qualifiers. We started off early and arrived there on time, most of the schools had already arrived. It was a sizzling morning and you could feel the excitement and adrenaline running through the air. We had three age groups, under 19s, under 16s and under 14s, all divided into girls and boys groups. Due to the number of schools there this year we only had 1 heat in races, rather than two like last year. For the first event we had the boys 1500m which comprised all the age groups of boys racing together. For that event Amano came out first followed by Chengelo, Mpelembe and Lechwe. For the under 16 boys first was Mpelembe followed by Amano then Simba and Chengelo. For under14s Amano came out 4th with Chengelo 1st. The second track event was 200m, for under19s Amano came first after a thrilling race [by James]. In under 16's Amano came out 4th with Chengelo in first place. Sadly in under 14's after a valiant try by Xavier he failed to qualify because slipped just at the end. This was then followed by 400m, for under 19s and Amano came out 1st [Fungai], for under 16's sadly even after a 'burn out' run Mwansa he was still enable to qualify. For under 14's, sadly just by a few inches, Amano lost its place in qualifiers. Then the next track event was the 100m, which was exceptional, for under 19's, 16's and U14's sadly failed to qualify. Then for the last individual run 800m in under 19's Amano came out first, but for the under 16's and 14's we failed to qualify.

Then went on to the relays: 4 x 100m Amano came out 5th but, due to 1 school above dropping out, we went up to qualify. For 4 by 400 after a thrilling race Amano came out 3rd. [The U16's also qualified in the 4 x 100, to the national ISAZ event, due to a late withdrawal of a team]

When it comes to the field Amano also performed well, as it came out second in the U19's long jump [Paul], second for U19s triple jump [James] and 4th for under 16's [Kurt]. We then came out 1st in under 16s high jump [Jackson] and 4th in under 14s [Xavier], then for U19 discus we came out 4th [Daniel]. In the shot put we came out 4th [Fungai] for under 19s, under 16s [Musonda] and 14s [Xavier].

Overall I believe it was a brilliant event which showed both talent and hard work. It was great to see that a lot of effort had been put in by both staff and students. I also believed that everybody tried their best and sadly for those that failed to qualify, I wish them better next time. Thank you.

Overall I would like to thank Mr Grove jr, the fellow staff and pupils for organising and helping and to God for making sure that everything went well.

Report by: Fungai Chanda


Some pictures of the event by Mr Pflaum

U16 Boys Hockey

On Saturday the 21st of May the Amano U16 boys went to Simba School to play hockey. There were three U16 teams. Amano, Chengelo and Simba.
Our first game was against Simba. During the first half we were sleeping and Simba scored 2 early goals. That meant that at half time we were losing 2-0. During the second half we woke up and got a goal early in the half from Musonda, but we were not able to score another and we lost 2-1.

Kurt hassling Chengelo and Damon in support

Our second game was against the Chengelo. They also started strong and caught us while we were napping and again by half time we were 2-0 down. At half time we decided that we should go and try to win this game by attacking as much as possible. However our risks did not pay off and so we conceded 3 more goals and we ended up losing 5-0.

Captain Samuel dribbling Chengelo

I want to thank Mr Grove for taking us and the team for playing so well despite not winning. My man of the tournament was Kurt Fernandes who played the full 20 minutes for both games and played outstandingly well.

Report by: Samuel Kirk

U19 Girls Hockey

On 21st May, Simba hosted a friendly hockey tournament for under 19 girls. We had a fairly new team consisting of 10 players. They all had different abilities and skills to contribute to the games.
Our first game was against Lechwe girls and we went on with a lot of confidence. From the beginning of the game, we had begun to take shots at the goal and eventually Diana scored in the first half! We tightened up our defence but the formation of the team wasn’t working as planned and changes were necessary. Shoshanna, the goalkeeper saved many shots coming her way. The defence slacked off and Lechwe managed to score a goal in the last three minutes. We drew that game 1-1.

Hailey worked hard for her first outing

The second game was against Simba, the home team. The game was off at a good start, and strikers Natalya and Diana took many shots on goal. Eventually Diana scored and we were now in the lead with 1 goal. Defence became stronger and we didn’t let any goals in. we won that game 1-0.
The third game was against Chengelo girls. We had different approach to that game and we had a lot of shots on goal. We had a good attack and even better defence. What made it even better was that we didn’t let any goals in; Shoshanna did an amazing job with saving the shots. Diana and Natalya both had a shot at goal and scored. We ended that game 2-0.

Natalya scoring against Chengelo

Overall we came 1st out of 4 hockey teams. The effort put in by the girls led them to win the under 19 girls tournament. Great thanks to the girls for the great performance and Mr Grove and Mr Kirk for coaching and advice.

Reported by: Janki Desai (girl's hockey captain)

Under 13 Mixed Doubles Badminton

On Saturday the 14th of May, a badminton tournament was held at Amano. [Simba and Lechwe schools sent teams to compete against.]

The under 13’s team was; seed A Joseph and Natalie, seed B Stacey and Akshata and seed C Nathan Z. and Laura. Simba School and Lechwe School brought 3 seeds each so we played 6 games each to 11 points.

Joseph and Natalie as Seed A

Natalie and I won 4 out of 6 games, Stacey and Akshata won 3 out of 6 and Nathan Z. and Laura won 1 out of 6. For the seed A category Natalie and I came 1st. For seed B category Stacey and Akshata came 2nd.

Stacey and Akshata as Seed B

For seed C category Nathan and Laura came 3rd. I think we did well and we fought hard. I would like to thank the team and Mr. Grove for all the hard work they put in.

Nathan and Laura as Seed C

Reported by Under 13 team captain, Joseph Kirk

U19 Boys Badminton

On Saturday we had badminton here at Amano and Lechwe and Simba both brought people for us to play against.  For the under 19 boys doubles Group A was Daniel and I and Group B was Samuel and Nisarg.  Daniel and I won one match and lost the other so we came second out of the Group A’s.
Samuel and Nisarg won both of their matches so they came first out of the Group B’s.

Jackson  (seed 2)

Daniel  (seed 1)

Nisarg  (seed 4)

 For singles, Daniel was seed one, I was seed two, Samuel was seed three, and Nisarg was seed four. Daniel won one and lost one so he came second, I won both matches so I came first, Samuel won both of his matches so he came first and Nisarg lost his one game so he came second.

On the whole I think we played fairly well seeing as we hardly ever play badminton and from what I saw, we played pretty well in the pairs we were put in.  I wanna thank Mr Grove for putting the whole thing together, I want to thank the players for the effort they put in, and I want to thank everyone one else who contributed to the day.  I think we all enjoyed ourselves.

Report by Jackson Reed

U19 Girls Badminton Tournament

On Saturday 14th May 2016, Amano Christian School hosted an under 13’s and under 19’s badminton tournament. The girls had two doubles teams which were designated team C and team D and four singles seeds, as follows seed 5, seed 6, seed 7 and seed 8.

Simba was the only school that we had an opportunity to play against on that day. On our doubles matches the first game was a friendly and Amano C played against Simba D, Amano C won 21-19. The following were official games, Amano D played against Simba D and Amano won 21-14. The final doubles game was Amano C vs. Simba C which Simba won 21-20.

Shoshanna and Diana as seed 1 and  2

In our singles game Amano seed 5 played Simba seed 5 and Simba won 21-14, Amano seed 6 played against Simba seed 6 which we won 21-14, Amano seed 7 vs. Simba seed 7 Amano won this game 21-13 and the last singles game was Amano seed 8 vs. Simba seed 8 and Simba won 21-14.
Over all we played two doubles games (won one and lost one) and four singles games (won two and lost two). I think as a whole we played fairly well as teams and not so bad in our singles.
It was fun to have been able to apply what we had learned in our P.E. lessons in an actual tournament, as well as pick up a few new skills and rules for our singles games. I definitely think we could have played more games but it was just unfortunate that Lechwe only brought one and a half of their girls’ team so we didn’t get to play with them as we had hoped to; I do have to say that it was good to see that Natasha was able to complete their half team.

Ysabelle and Josiah as seed 3 and 4

It really was great fun and this showed in the way we “illegally” played friendly games with other girls from our visiting school when a court was open. I think it was a good effort from Josiah as she did quite well on her singles match even though she managed to hit a shuttle into one of the hall support beams!

In the future it would be good to more practice on how to play singles as we did find it a bit more challenging in the beginning but wasn’t as bad as some of us had thought.
I would just really like to thank Mr Grove for arranging the whole event, to those who contributed to it, the kitchen for the snacks (the Simba girls really liked the cake) and for the team and all their effort.


Reported by: Ysabelle Cariaga