Sporting Highlights – 24 November 2023

Swimming
In swimming news, it was arguably Lancing’s toughest round yet at the Arena League last weekend in Tunbridge Wells. Lancing finished 2 points ahead of Dover who had beaten us in Round 1, this now keeps us firmly in Division 1, we look forward to the final round in December.

Squash
In squash, two matches in the last week, and two wins, against Hurst and Eastbourne for our seniors boys. Henry G writes …
The whole team played well with Lincoln “Macaroni” M, Henry “The Hoover” G, Frankie “The Fast” P all securing comfortable wins, overall score 6-4.  It was great seeing so much energy from the boys for the first match of the season and this was then replicated against Eastbourne; with a tie in matches at 3-3, we had to go to games scored on count back and won 8-7.

Hockey
In hockey it was our junior girls who has the best results on Saturday, our U15As securing a 3-0 win against Eastbourne, with goals from Amelia G, Emily S and Ava U. Most valuable players were Grace H and Polly E. Our U15Bs also victorious with 2 goals from Daisy D-P and a winning goal from Nadia L for the 3-2 win. Most valuable players were Grace W and Destiny M.

Cross-Country
The cross-country team travelled to Harrow for the Southeast Championships last week. Spectacular runs by Bibi W, Theo S F, Max S, Luca C, Lara N and Mark McD, with an especially impressive run from Bibi who came first in the Junior Girls’ race.

Basketball
In a highly anticipated matchup between Lancing and Worth, the top two teams from last year battled it out for the first time this season. In a closely fought game, the lead constantly changed hands with great basketball being played by both teams. Fortunately Lancing managed to keep their composure down the stretch and maintain the small lead they had gained. The final score was 55-49 to Lancing.

Badminton
Lancing College Girls’ 1st team took on Roedean in their first match of the season. A fantastic performance from all of the players with lots of close matches, however it was a convincing win for Lancing 21 – 12. A great start for the girls. 

 The players representing the College included Connie W, Nam S, Shanna J, Cloris C, Alysha H, Keria Y, Tiffany X and Audrey N.

Gymnastics
Freddie B (Teme House), arrived back from Italy at the beginning of the week sporting a silver medal from the Junior Mixed competition at the Team Gym Mid European Championships. A fantastic competition, Freddie’s team had only 0.8 point gap between the gold and silver medallists. Landing his first ‘triple’ and executing it perfectly Freddie should be very proud of his performance. The next step is the pre-selection programme for Great Britain next April, for the European Championships in Baku in October 2024.

Football
In the only game of last week following the weekends postponed matches due to waterlogged pitches, the 2nd XI extended their unbeaten run to 5 games following a 2-0 win over The Regis School in the County Cup. Goals from Oscar R and Marshall D and a determined performance from Carl F in defence helped to secure the win and a clean sheet.

On Tuesday, the U15A, U15B and U14A were in action in matches against Claremont School and Shoreham College. The U14As dominated the match playing good football and comfortably won their match 4-0; however a late goal saw the U15Bs lose a close match 3-2. Our team of the week this week is our U15As who gave their best performance this year and, after going behind, excelled to a 6-1 victory in the ESFA Small Schools Cup against Claremont. It was an outstanding team performance led by Alex G, Joseph C and Man of the Match Gethin W who scored 4 goals. Notable performances also from Jack R, Jude G and Patrick C who all stepped up to play in the U15 team.

Team of the Week: Ethan B, Carl F, Alex G, Thomas R, Joseph C, Thomas H, Marshall D, Samuel W, Gethin W, Jude G and Oscar R. 

Star player of the week: Gethin W

Climbing
Our Lancing rock climbers competed against well over a hundred of the region’s best in the most recent inter-school competition. Our top-scoring rock climbers Oscar L, Franci B, and Eddie A assembled a combined score of 80% in Bouldering and 70% in the Top-rope discipline. Eddie A wowed the crowd in both categories and pulled together a total score of 98%(!), placing him fourth in the regional ranking. Well done to all our climbers!