Bronze Medal for SHS AIMS Girls Football Team
Below is an account of the week for the Girls Football team by Joanne Rennie, who did a great job of keeping everyone informed about how well the team was doing all week. Thanks Joanne!
“I just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you all so much for all your support over the AIMS Games tournament, especially Sean for taking the time to come down to Tauranga and cheer us on in person - the girls were very proud to have their principal come and watch them win.
Every message that we received was passed onto the girls and they really appreciated them all.
When we embarked on this journey 6 months ago we never in our wildest dreams imagined the girls could achieve what they did. When we left for the tournament we said we would be absolutely thrilled if they made it into the top 16 teams and to the “Championship” round.
Each day as we won, the dream just got bigger and closer and when we played Baradene we thought the girls had played their final but they all kept going - all of them played more than 100% every game and we couldn't of asked for anything more from them.
We knew the St Kents game was going to be very hard and we nearly scored so many times but it didn’t happen and as it was the girls first lost they were devastated. However all of these girls picked themselves up and went out to win a medal the next day - I am in awe of what they achieved and couldn’t be prouder.
AIMS Games is an emotional and physical rollercoaster and this team of 14 girls have created something very special that they will never forget.
The support from all of our parents and family over the last 6 months including coming down to the tournament and cheering us on in person has been incredible too and we couldn’t have done it without them all.
It was so special to see the front page of the website too - when I pointed it out to the parents some of them said they cried, including me !
We kept these girls going all week with so many vitamins and immunity tablets and successfully got through without losing anyone to illness or injury. On Wednesday one of the girls got a sore throat and it started to spread, by Friday there were sore throats, sniffles, bandaged knees and ankles but we made it! A few of them went down with fevers yesterday and of course we thought this would happen as we have just been riding on a high all week - I just hope these girls can get to school this week to celebrate their success and see all their friends and teachers.
I took over 500 photos and 100 videos and also my brother who is a photographer came down and took 300 photos on the Wednesday when we bet Baradene, so we are trying to go through these as soon as possible to come up with a few of the best ones.
Please find attached a breakdown of our results over the week and a couple of the shots from the medal ceremony”.
Joanne Rennie
Well done girls!
