Woodhill College wins the battle of private schools against state schools at Pretoria E-league schools athletics Inter-High
The Pretoria E-league schools Inter-High athletics meeting, which concluded on Monday in wet and inclement weather, can rightly be described as a battle between four emerging private schools and four established state schools, and it was ultimately Woodhill College that emerged victorious from a very intense battle.
The track at the Pilditch athletics stadium in Pretoria West was wet from overnight rain that lasted until late morning, while the weather was cloudy and cool throughout the day, but the action during Monday’s Pretoria E-league athletics meeting was hot and exciting.
This event, which was presented with great distinction by Curro Roodeplaat, had an interesting twist, as four of the eight participating schools are modern private schools, while the other four participants are state schools.
The results were equally interesting. The event was won by one of the private schools, while the rest alternated according to this above mentioned status.
Woodhill College, a private school from the east of Pretoria that is also part of the Curro school group, emerged as champion with 2268 points. The state school Hoërskool Langenhoven (2064 points) followed close behind and the trend continued with Maragon Mooikloof (2034 points) in third place, Hoërskool Staatspresident CR Swart (1979 points) fourth, Curro Roodeplaat (1923 points) fifth, Silverton High School (1641 points) sixth, Amberfield College in Centurion (1604 points) seventh and The Glen High School, also from the east of the city in eighth place with 1424 points.
This result is probably a warning to other state schools that the private schools are on the rise as sporting forces, after similar schools have already established themselves over the past two decades in three of the four higher Pretoria athletics leagues.
Woodhill College’s performance also means that they will compete in the D-league next year in place of Willowridge High School, who finished eighth in the D-league on Tuesday and will therefore be relegated to the E-league.
The weather conditions didn’t really put a damper on the top athletes’ performances. A total of ten event records were broken during Monday’s action.
The big star of the day was probably Maragon Mooikloof’s u.19 sprinter, Ntsaki Mashimbye. The speedster won both the 100m and 200m races in his age group with ease, while setting a new record of 22.61s in the 200m.
Mashimbye and his teammates also won the gold medal in the 4x100m relay for boys u.19, beating their opponents by a few metres.
Other outstanding performances from the event were Jazmin Bosch of Woodhill College’s new record time of 16.35s in the 90m hurdles for girls u.14; Katlego Kekana of Langenhoven’s time of 10:12.91 in the 300m for boys u.19; Kamogelo Maubane of Langenhoven’s 13.98s in the 100m for girls u.14 and Jasmine Velho of Woodhill College’s 28.57s in the 200m for girls u.17.
Jordine Jonkers of Silverton delivered the best performance in a field event with her 9.33m in the shot put for girls u.17.
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