Over the weekend of 2-3 February, Kingswood College hosted its eighth Brian Baker water polo tournament for First team girls. In a Jubilee year where Kingswood celebrates its 125 year anniversary, this event was always going to be a certain highlight.
Photo: Supplied
The Brian Baker Tournament – in honour of the late Brian Baker, who was responsible for starting Girls’ water polo at Kingswood, has become an extremely popular tournament on the first team girls water polo circuit. This year’s tournament saw Durban Girls College, Herschel and Crawford Lonehill take part for the first time. All three schools have historically proven to be Girls’ Water polo powerhouses. These three schools, amongst a host of competitor schools as well as the full duration format of the event, have all contributed to the Brian Baker tournament becoming a bench park for Girls’ Water polo in South Africa.
After the pool matches, Pearson and Reddam House emerged as the winners of their respective pools. These two were later joined by Crawford and Herschel respectively in the semi-finals. Herschel went on to win the tournament for the first time, beating a very strong Pearson side 13-9.
The host side, Kingswood College, played some very effective water polo en route to coming eighth out of fourteen overall. The highlights of the tournament for Kingswood being their 7-6 win over Collegiate, as well as the nail-biter against Clarendon that saw the hosts lose 7-8 in the dying moments of the game. All teams will now turn their attention to the St Peter’s tournament in Johannesburg at the end of February.
In a very impressive setting, Kingswood College again proved to be the ideal hosts of an event that saw most of the top girls’ water polo-playing schools in South Africa converge on Makhanda (Grahamstown) to battle it out in the pool. The event continues to play a major role in the further development of the game in the country and will surely continue to do so for some time still.
Final standings:
1. Herschel
2. Pearson
3. Reddam House
4. Crawford Lonehill
5. Clarendon & St Dominic’s
7. Stirling
8. Kingswood
9. Durban Girls College
10. Collegiate
11. Glenwood House
12. DSG
13. Alex Road
14. Hudson Park
