Orienteering

The last few years of Orienteering have been brilliant, in many ways. As Captain and a member of the squad who has been participating in this sport since the School first offered it at the end of Year 6, I can safely say that it has been a great joy to be a member of the squad. While the last few years have been largely affected by the Covid-19 pandemic, Orienteering has been largely unaffected.

In the last few years, our squad has taken the trophy off Scotch and defended our title multiple times, including once again this year. With our squad beating out Scotch for three of the four competition weeks, we raked up a total of 976 points overall, compared to Scotch with 681, handily scoring yet another season victory.

We also had numerous individual placegetters, with Daniel Feng taking home D Grade; Rohan Wickremasinghe taking home equal 1st, and Owen Lim taking 3rd in C Grade; William Phillips, our Vice Captain, and Cameron Haw taking equal 2nd in B Grade; Henry Shirrefs taking 2nd, and Benjamin Price, Captain, taking 1st in A Grade. We must also be sure to thank our wonderful coaches, maths teacher Dr Rodgers, Art teacher Mr Williamson, Alumni Nick Lee, and Alumni and former Captain Luke Burton.

However, with the ups also come the downs. As I’m writing this, we have recently finished our first season of orienteering without the long-time coach, Science teacher, mentor, and all-around awesome guy Mr Gordon Wilson. He had coached Orienteering for longer than I’ve been on the team, and his loss saddened everyone involved in both our squad and the competition. The impact he had on us as a squad, and the Orienteering community as a whole, was huge. As such, from this season just now finished and into the future, our Orienteering squad will no longer be competing for the Roger Slade Memorial Trophy, but the Roger Slade and Gordon Wilson Memorial Trophy.

On that note, it can be said that our season was somewhat bittersweet, but we will not give up, and we will continue to compete into the future to defend our title.

Benjamin Price

Captain of Orienteering

Orienteering squad after taking home the title.