Inaugural Sports Awards – May 2018
Santa Sabina was delighted to host our inaugural Sports Awards event on the afternoon of May 23rd. It was an opportunity to celebrate the fantastic effort and success of our many participants in a wide range of sports this year. Guest of honour was Irish Rugby star and former Kerry Gaelic Football player Louise Galvin who has also played basketball at a high level. Louise also worked with our 5th year students last year as part of the Sky Sports Living Programme and spoke inspirationally to the assembled audience of students, teachers and parents about the benefits of sport.
Well done to all of our teams on their many wonderful achievements this year which you can read about on the Sports News on the website’s News Link. Some are also mentioned in the following articles written by just a few of our senior sporting participants.
Thank you also to our teachers, coaches and parents for their support and dedication throughout the year. A special acknowledgement and thank you must also go to Iníon Nic an Bhaird and the team who organised this special school celebration.
Sports News Items by Senior Students - Summer 2018
Athletics
Nicola McCann
Santa Sabina is always very well represented in Athletics with many athletes excelling in the North Leinster, Leinster and even All Ireland competitions. There is great enthusiasm in the school in athletics and every year there is huge competition for places on the bus to Santry. With only 2 spaces per school, trials are held and the best athletes are chosen to go onto Santry. It is always a very enjoyable day out and we would like to thank Mr. Hone for organising it this year. We are looking forward to more success in 2019.
Basketball
Laura Stafford and Ciara Phillips
Basketball is a very popular sport in Santa Sabina. We played on the senior premier team this year and we were successful in getting to the Senior Basketball Finals. We came up against a strong opposition in Dominican College Griffith Avenue and were very disappointed to only take home a silver medal. We finally all got our gold medals however when we competed in the Dominican Cup held here in Santa Sabina. We succeeded in bringing home the trophy all thanks to Mr Hone’s great coaching skills.
On behalf of the basketball players of Santa Sabina we would like to thank Ms O Doherty, Mr Hone and Iníon Nic an Bhaird for everything that they have done in supporting us in our achievements this year.
Equestrian Sport
Danielle Phillips and Keelin Malone
The equestrian team in Santa Sabina is rapidly growing, having increased to 10 members this year. We’ve had 2 teams competing for the last couple of years in the Killossery Interschools League. This year we placed 4th and the previous year we placed 2nd out of 20 schools. This sport takes a lot of work and dedication and we would like to commend everyone's efforts. Everyone involved has shown brilliant team work, skills and sportsmanship. We would like to thanks our coaches and parents for helping us achieve success year after year.
Gaelic Football
Aoife Foley & Síabh Hannigan
Santa Sabina has a long history of sporting excellence in a range of sports. Gaelic Football however only truly took off in the school about eight years ago. This year proved an historic one for the GAA department. Both the junior and senior team made their finals and the senior team succeeded in taking home a Leinster title. This was particularly sweet as we have made great progress over the least five years, each year making semi-finals and finals and unfortunately returning empty handed. But 2018 was definitely our year, and it’s only the beginning of great things to come.
What is most exciting is that Santa Sabina now has three strong and talented panels. A great deal of the team’s success in recent years is undoubtedly due to Mr. Granell’s tireless commitment and support. We very much appreciate his efforts. We would also like to mention Mike our bus driver and sponsor, who kindly decked us out for our final with new gear.
Every time we stepped out to play this year every single person gave 100% and worked as a team to bring home the silver ware. Very well done everyone!
Hockey
Erika Murray and Caoimhe McCann
There are 10 hockey teams in the school and about 120 students play the sport. We have training every evening on the astro turf for the various teams. We have many coaches including Ms Pearson, Mr Hone, Iníon Nic an Bhaird, Ed Hipwell and Helen Ruttle. We enter the Leinster League and the Northside League every year and play schools from all over Dublin.
This year we were successful in the Northside League with the First Year Beginners and the Senior Bs winning silverware. We’ve really enjoyed playing hockey. It’s given us the opportunity to make so many new friends. The highlights over the years have included the banter at Dominican Cup and all the finals we’ve succeeded in reaching. Thanks to Ms Pearson and the coaches for all their hard work and enthusiasm.
Sailing
Alannah Carroll-McGeehan
Santa Sabina has been competing in the annual All Ireland Interschools Sailing Competition since it was first set up in Sutton Dinghy Club forty three years ago. Since then we have had much success for example our A team coming 2nd in 2015.
We compete every year and this year we had three teams competing. We currently have 17 members on the team and next year we hope to compete in more events. We would like to thank Mr.Hone for helping us coordinate the teams and Ms.Cavanagh for supporting us each year and giving us the opportunity to represent our school while doing something we love.
Tag Rugby
Isobel Green and Millie Cassidy
This year, Youth Tag Rugby Ireland held their first tournament for Transition Year students. It was held in UCD on the 26th of April and we were lucky enough to take part. We have played Tag Rugby in PE over the years and in preparation for this competition, we had a training session with two coaches from Youth Tag Rugby. We entered 4 girls’ teams and also joined up with St. Fintans to enter 8 mixed teams into the competition. There were over 15 schools from all over Leinster and the competition was huge. We were both on the same team and we ended up winning the Leinster Girls title. One of the mixed teams from Santa Sabina and Fintans also went on to win the Mixed Teams Plate.
It was a really enjoyable experience and we think it’s definitely something that should continue for Transition Year students and other years in the school also. We would like to thank Iníon for organising this wonderful experience and St. Fintans for joining up with us for the mixed tournament.
Ultimate Frisbee
Ciara Dodd and Lucy Murphy
We are 2 of the 7 Ultimate Frisbee players who won the All Ireland Schools Ultimate Frisbee Champions 2018 on the 23rd of February. We entered 3 frisbee teams into the tournament. We had played in a Frisbee league with the St Fintan’s boys in 4th year. In this year’s tournament we played against Muckross A and B teams and Dominican College Cabra . It was an intense and enjoyable day which was a great experience to be a part of.
Volleyball
Nicole Sutton & Uthraja Venugopalan Nair
Volleyball has been a popular Sport in Santa Sabina for many years and many girls have enjoyed the various competitions and training sessions over the years. There is a senior and junior volleyball team. We train every Thursday or Tuesday for an hour after school in the Sportlann with our coach Tony. Every year, the teams do very well and this year the senior team were runners up in the Senior Schools Finals. We would like to thank Tony for his dedication and commitment to the sport and we would like to wish the next Volleyball prefect all the best in her job.
Wheelchair Basketball
Mollie Heaney & Katie Sheridan
This year in TY we competed in wheelchair basketball along with St Fintans. This exciting new sporting activity was organised by Iníon Nic an Bhaird and Mr O’Neill from St Fintans. This was an initiative to help increase our awareness of the work of the Irish Wheelchair Association. We developed an appreciation for the difficulties experienced by the wheelchair community but also developed an understanding of the opportunities available to them to live a full and exciting life through sport. Our school, along with St. Fintans, raised €2000 for the IWA through this programme. We had non uniform days but also collected money in the Blanchardstown Centre with the IWA.
This was an amazing experience as we entered the mixed Leinster tournament and won. As Leinster champions, we went on to All Ireland’s where we came 3rd. We are so jealous of the 3rd years next year who will also get the chance to take part in Wheelchair Basketball next year. We would like to thank Iníon for organising this exciting initiative.