The Basketball Diaries

1st Year Boys

Alexandra college (51-8) and Sion Hill (28-6).

All the matches were great to play and travel to, and the team had an amazing time. Sadly our league ended recently but we placed third!

We continue to train every Wednesday, which is very enjoyable and our team is developing every week, with a big thanks to Ms Browne. We are hoping to play some friendly matches in the New Year, and improve as a team even further.

By Fia Scally, 3rd Year

Senior Girls

There was a great turnout to our first training session back in September when 25 plus boys showed up on that first Tuesday. Unfortunately sessions were postponed until after mid-term due to other sports but now we are back in action with a smaller group. We have been practicing our throws, dribbling skills and

U16 Girls

The under 16 girls’ basketball team had a great season this year, we played five matches, starting off strong against Teresians with a 22-12 win. We continued to

If I had to sum up the Senior girls’ basketball season so far it would be: short and sweet! We've had a quite a few matches so far that haven't exactly gone our way. Our first away game was against Teresians. As we hadn’t had much training, we lost, but we did get some baskets and got to know each other’s names.

Over the last number of months, we have been working on shooting and defense tactics such as zonal. If there’s one thing Ms Browne has cemented in our brains, it’s to keep our arms up and get right in their faces. And it really works. Our second game was against Sion Hill and their infamous American coach. They were much better than we’d expected them to be! Another game was against Firhouse. This was a much tighter game, with Newpark coming back and closing up the gap. We ended this game only one basket behind.

Though we didn’t advance in our league and were quite unlucky with our matches, it has been a positive in term and our post-match debriefs are unmatched. Hopefully we can win some friendlies in the months to come!

By Sophie Shepherd, TY

U16 Boys

The U16 boys’ basketball have had a good season. At the start of the year, we were drawn in a group with Nord Anglia, Terenure College, St Mary’s Rathmines and Gonzaga. In our first game, we were away to Nord Anglia. After a closely fought contest, unfortunately we lost 25-20. In our second game, we were away to Terenure College. After another close game, we ended up winning by 4 points 39-35. Luckily, we got a walkover against Mary’s after a bus mix up on their end. In our last group game, we played Gonzaga, who the win with a score of 47-26. It was a great way to end the competitive season and now we look forward to training hard for the rest of the year, before moving up to the new challenge of senior basketball next season!

By Noah Dodson, 3rd Year

Senior Boys

The senior team secured promotion after winning the league last year. We came into this season with the goal of winning the Dublin East League again. We quickly learned this wouldn’t be easy after a narrow loss to Gonzaga. This forced us to enter a play-in to reach the quarter final. We managed to win the game by two points against East Glendalough.

In the quarter finals of the shield, we played St. Marys and ended up winning by a comfortable margin of 57–38. In the semi-final we faced Ardgillan, and after being behind for most of the game, we managed to pull back and clinch a 31-26 win to set up a final against King’s Hospital in Oblates Hall in Inchicore.

It was a tight first half in the final with Newpark leading going into the break by 5 points. In the second half, we pulled together as a team and managed to seal

The next game against Maynooth was no easier as we had to make a big come-back to win by two points. After beating Wesley in the semi-final we were left with Coláiste Raithín in the final in the National Basketball Arena in Tallaght. Our first challenge was off the court as Mr Doyle had to fight hard to get us a second supporters’ bus. An animated crowd of over 140 people spurred us on to a twenty point victory in the final.

The team has improved a lot under our new coach and former student Dillon Hennessy and we are now looking ahead to our quarter final in the All Irelands. In January we headed to Ennistymon, Co. Clare and secured a 36-28 victory – worth the six hours of travel in the end!

By Gavin MacAonghusa, 6th Year

1st Year Boys Hockey

This year there are a lot of first year boys doing

The year started off rocky with our first blitz against St. Andrew’s. We did not win any games but since then we have won all of our league matches so far.

We train Tuesdays and Fridays and we normally do drills and then a match. We are really enjoying training and are getting a lot better as a team. We are looking forward to the rest of the season and we hope to keep our winning streak.

By Daniel Clabby, 1st Year

1st Year Girls Hockey

Hockey started in August and our training sessions are on Tuesdays and Thursdays at 4-5pm. The first excitement of the year was a blitz against Loreto.

In October we were entered into the 1st year league and began to play proper half pitch matches. Some of the schools we played against were Muckross, Mount Anville and Newbridge Collage.

The A team have made it through to the finals and we are very excited!

By Clarissa Maybury, 1st Year

2nd Year Girls Hockey

We have really been enjoying the hockey so far, especially because at first it looked like we wouldn’t have the pitch for a few months. We are very lucky to have been able to play a lot of matches.

The A team were doing quite well in the Cup, but unfortunately lost their recent match. Luckily there is still a very good chance they can win their league as can the B team. Both teams have won many matches but also lost a few, but hopefully we can improve lots more before the season ends. All of us have really been enjoying training this year, not so much when it's cold out, but even then, we still have lots of fun with our coaches and the rest of the team.

We can’t wait to see how the rest of the year goes for us and we are really looking forward to it.

By Emily Ferguson, 2nd Year

2nd Year Boys Hockey

The second-year boys hockey team has had a great start of the year making into the division 1 league along with schools like Andrew’s and Wesley. At the start of this season, we played Andrews where we went one nil up until the last five minutes where they got a lucky goal to make the end result a draw. We then went on to play Sandford where we won 3-1 and then Wesley Bs who we had to beat to make it into the A league we beat them 7-0!

We now aim to try and battle are way through the A division and hopefully snag the league by the end of the year. Everyone is improving their skills at every training thanks to the amazing coaching staff. While we all love winning, hockey is also a time to have a laugh with mates or make new friends. So if you are thinking of joining, pop on down for a training or two

The hockey season began in September starting with great training sessions helping us all get back into hockey mode. We have been working on different drills preparing for our matches. We have been practicing short corners, press, passing and positioning etc.

We are very lucky to have a squad big enough that we can field two teams. The A team has had a very successful first half of the season having won all matches to date. This means we are top of our Division 1 League and are still in the running for the Junior Cup. The team has worked hard together resulting in a great rapport on and off pitch. The B team has also worked hard on their play seeing a few wins so far.

We have seen amazing improvement from everyone playing hockey since September. Huge thanks to our coaches Tyron and Ben for their time and effort given to junior hockey. Well done to both teams so far and here’s to a fun and successful second half of the 2022/2023 hockey season!

By Mia Chadwick, TY

Junior Boys Hockey

For this season of hockey, we have taken in the new 3rd years, and they’ve boosted our team as they are very skilful. Because we have so many 3rd years, we now have an A team and a B team. The B team started the season off great by beating Mount Temple 4-0! And a couple games into the season our A team beat High School 7-1, with the man of the match Will Lloyd getting a hat-trick.

Recently, it has been very cold and sadly a lot of our matches have been cancelled due to pitches being frozen. We hope that after winter passes and we go into spring, we will have lots of successful matches to finish out our season of hockey.

By Aidan Gosling, TY

Senior Girls Hockey

This hockey season has been nothing short of exciting as we entered this season with a brand new team and new coach we didn’t know what to expect. From the very beginning, a noticeable chemistry formed which has contributed to our great successes in the league. We are currently in the semi-finals for our league and eager to make it to the finals. Unfortunately we lost our first cup game and are currently working hard through the plate, having won a few matches already. We are excited to see the outcomes of our 2023 season as it has been an amazing experience with an amazing team.

For some, it is our last year playing hockey in Newpark and it has probably been the best so far! We wish all the other hockey girls the best of luck next year.

Of course we have a few very important people to thank, who have put a lot of effort into girls’ hockey this year. A big thank you to Linda, Denver, Simon, Ms Carr, Ben, Mr Adams and Tyron.

By Sophie Hamilton and Laragh Tierney, 6th Year

Senior Boys Hockey

Coming into this school year, excitement levels were high as the students of Newpark were waiting to hear the news on the long awaited, and long overdue, resurfacing of the hockey pitch which never actually went ahead unfortunately. As we weren’t meant to have a pitch for the first half of the season the senior

Swimming

As we all know, the atmosphere around Newpark is encouraging and supportive and it’s always great for supporters to go watch matches and give the teams a boost; this is something that we as the players always look forward to on matchdays. Playing only away games meant that we had no supporting crowd to give us that extra boost in confidence and performance but even without the home advantage, the boys still managed to win two out of three league games in round 1, which saw us finish second behind The King’s Hospital and placed us in round 2 with Temple Carraig, St. Andrew’s Bs and Sutton Park who all also placed second in their groups.

This year’s Senior Boys team is possibly one of the school’s youngest senior squads ever with the team being made up of students from 6th–3rd years and even saw the introduction of second years David Rankin and Joshua Carroll to the squad. Luckily, the younger lads were able to fill in as the overlap in 4th year activity weeks and matches resulted in depleted squad numbers when we came up against Wesley College Bs. The lads dug deep and fought hard to take home a crucial win to finish second in round 1 with the 3rd and 2nd years standing their ground against the senior students of Wesley.

With two home games scheduled against St. Andrew’s and Sutton after the Christmas break, the Senior boys would love to get as many supporters as possible out to the matches to cheer on the team to see the season off in true Newpark style.

By Daragh Grogan, 6th Year

In October of this year, a swim team in Newpark was put together. The team is made up of 1st- 4th year students, open to swimmers of all levels. Since then, training has taken place with Ms Ormond every Tuesday and Thursday morning from 8-8.30 in the Newpark pool.

Starting off our events for this year, we were delighted to be invited for a friendly swim gala with The King’s Hospital School on the 7th of December. To prepare for this we selected two swimmers in each year, one boy and one girl to swim each event, followed by mixed relay teams from each year. We spent our time in training preparing for our relays and respective events.

On the day of the gala, there was plenty of nerves but far more excitement, we were feeling confident. It was only a friendly gala after all. We left class early and all piled onto the bus to King’s Hospital. As both schools were missing a few students, we subbed in people from each school to fill lanes for races.

There was a relaxed atmosphere, with everyone glad to be there. Ms Ormond and Ms Farrell took down everyone’s times and every swimmer was pleased with how they did. The gala finished with the relays, which proved to be plenty of fun and a great way to end the day.

Overall, it was a great experience for us all to improve our swimming. The gala showed the hard work and effort that Newpark students have put in at the free swims and for their clubs. We’re very grateful for King’s Hospital’s invitation and to Ms Ormond for making it possible. The team are looking forward to future galas and continued success.

By Lisa Maxwell and Hannah Reed, TY and Kuba Kadlubowski, 2nd Year