{"id":69122,"date":"2025-04-06T18:51:14","date_gmt":"2025-04-06T16:51:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=69122"},"modified":"2025-04-06T18:51:14","modified_gmt":"2025-04-06T16:51:14","slug":"st-marys-dsg-crowned-st-marys-waverley-festival-champions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/?p=69122","title":{"rendered":"St Mary&#8217;s DSG crowned St Mary&#8217;s Waverley Festival champions"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure id=\"attachment_69123\" aria-describedby=\"caption-attachment-69123\" style=\"width: 400px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-69123\" src=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/St-Marys-at-Waverley-400x256.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"400\" height=\"256\" \/><figcaption id=\"caption-attachment-69123\" class=\"wp-caption-text\">St Mary&#8217;s DSG Kloof was crowned the 2025 St Mary&#8217;s Waverley Festival champions. Photo: St Mary&#8217;s DSG<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p><strong>St Mary\u2019s DSG, Kloof<\/strong>, produced an outstanding performance on their way to lifting the <strong>Standard Bank St Mary&#8217;s Waverley Festival<\/strong> trophy after beating <strong>HMS Bloemhof <\/strong>1-0 in a thrilling final on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;The team has just been fantastic in never giving up and working for each other. Everyone has played a part in the success,&#8221; <strong>Caryn Springate<\/strong>, the St Mary&#8217;s DSG Director of Hockey told <a href=\"https:\/\/ssschoolsplus.co.za\/hockey\"><strong>Supersport Schools Plus<\/strong> <\/a>ahead of the final.<\/p>\n<p>St Mary&#8217;s DSG is now the fourth team after <strong>St Mary&#8217;s Waverley<\/strong>, <strong>Durban Girls&#8217; College (DGC),<\/strong> and <strong>Oranje<\/strong> to lift the title three or more times. They previously won the tournament in 2007 and 2018.<\/p>\n<p>The champions were drafted in <strong>Pool C<\/strong> along with Rhenish, who made the semi-finals, St Mary\u2019s Waverley, <strong>St Cyprian&#8217;s<\/strong>, <strong>Clarendon<\/strong>, <strong>St Stithians<\/strong>, <strong>Pretoria High School for Girls<\/strong>, and <strong>Windhoek High<\/strong>. Coach <strong>Nolwazi Nkabinde<\/strong>&#8216;s side won six of their seven matches and lost only one to proceed to stage two of the tournament.<\/p>\n<p>Playing in Pool F in the second stage, tied with Bloemhof at the top of the pool on points. The eventual finalists drew 1-1 in their Pool F clash.<\/p>\n<p>In the knockout matches, Nkabinde\u2019s side prevailed over <strong>Paarl Gim<\/strong> in the quarterfinals and beat <strong>Eunice<\/strong> in a penalty shootout in the semifinals.<\/p>\n<p><iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Hockey Final - St Mary&amp;apos;s DSG vs HMS Bloemhof - St Mary&amp;apos;s Waverley Hockey Festival - 6 April 2025\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ugKz7989z-k?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe><\/p>\n<p>St Mary&#8217;s success was built around their teamwork. They connected well, stretching the opposition with good passing and movement. The ladies from KZN were particularly menacing down their right channel where<strong> Tayte Stewart <\/strong>and <strong>Jamie da Silva<\/strong> gave their opponents fits.<\/p>\n<p>Nicola Forbes and company also did a good job of closing down space when not in possession. They pressed high and their goal in the final was a result of a turnover deep in Bloemhof&#8217;s territory.<\/p>\n<p>After gaining possession, <strong>Jenna-Leigh Freese<\/strong> laid off a pass to Stewart who found Jamie da Silva on the edge of the circle. The St Mary&#8217;s DSG forward had four Bloemhof defenders around her but still managed to work her way into the D and uncork a strike into the back of the net.<\/p>\n<p>The next 10 minutes saw Bloemhof fight hard to find an equaliser but the St Mary&#8217;s DSG defenders were equal to the task.<\/p>\n<p>Springate was impressed by St Mary&#8217;s DSG&#8217;s collective hockey IQ. The KZN team is one of the youngest sides on the circuit, with only one player, their captain, Nicola Forbes, in grade 12. Their brilliant goalkeeper, <strong>Ziyanda Mchunu<\/strong>, who bailed them out of a few sticky situations is one of many Grade 10 learners in the side.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We have had a lot of support from everyone back home: students and the staff at the school, parents, and former players,&#8221; Springate said.<\/p>\n<p>Nicola Forbes and her teammates paid back that support with the prestigious St Mary&#8217;s Waverley Festival trophy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>St Mary\u2019s DSG, Kloof, produced an outstanding performance on their way to lifting the Standard Bank St Mary&#8217;s Waverley Festival trophy after beating HMS Bloemhof 1-0 in a thrilling final on Sunday. &#8220;The team has just been fantastic in never giving up and working for each other. Everyone has played a part in the success,&#8221; [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":32,"featured_media":69123,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-69122","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69122","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/32"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69122"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69122\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/69123"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69122"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69122"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.ssschoolsplus.co.za\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69122"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}