Bardon State School took out the Joyce Petfield Memorial Trophy for girls and The Gap State School took the Ron Petfield Trophy for boys in the annual Primary Schools Challenge.

The Challenge is a 2km cross-country race contested by Year 5 – 7 boys and girls from public and private schools in the general Ashgrove-Bardon-The Gap area.
The meet was held in perfect autumn conditions on 29 April. 182 boys and girls lined up for the races, a very good turn out for an after-school activity.

Bardon bettered last year’s third placing on the back of top two placings in the girls event with Sarah Tisdall winning in 8 minutes and 18 seconds and Freya Lee 11 seconds behind. Mater Dei’s India Williams was third, a further 8 seconds back.

The Gap took out three of the top four placings in the boys event to claim the trophy in it’s first outing. Samuel Bailey placed first in 7 minutes and 52 seconds, 10 seconds ahead of Gavin de Wet. Bardon kept their representation consistent through Tiaki Cavanagh’s third placing in 8 minutes and 21 seconds. His excellent time showed the benefits of regular competition in the monthly Flying 4 event.

Results…

The Joyce and Ron Petfield Trophies meet is a yearly event organised by the Ashgrove Rangers, and is a lot of fun. This year 157 primary school students represented their schools and ran hard for the trophies. There were 7 girl teams and 8 boys teams. Students did not have to qualify to run in this race; the aim is that the children give it their best and have some fun along the way.  However, one of the PE teachers mentioned that it is a valuable experience for the children who are selected to represent their schools in the cross country later on.

This year the girls team from Ashgrove and and the boys team from Oakleigh were successful in winning Trophies. However, Hannah Lewindon and Gus Daley from St Joseph’s (just beating Jesse Beaumont from Rainworth by 0.2sec)  finished first in the girls and boys races.

Ron Petfield and Cain Robertson from Oakleigh SS

Ron Petfield presented the trophies, sadly without his wife Joyce who recently past away.  Ron encouraged the young crowd to have fun and that if they did not come first, to not give up, but to do the training, which would pay off sooner or later.

While the Ashgrove girls won with 25 points and a great margin of 20 points to the nearest team (St Joseph’s), the Oakley boys only won by 1 point over the Ashgrove boys (31 v 32 points).  The score was calculated by adding up the placing numbers of the first 4 childern of each school coming in, with the lowest score winning.

Among the youngsters were a number of Ashgrove Rangers: Annie Gynther (who came 4th!), Jessica Gallagher, Jessica Stacey, Anton and April McQueen and other children from the Ashgrove Rangers Junior Squad: Zali Eason-Coutts, Maddie Moy, and Tiaki (5th!) and Akiwa Cavanagh.

We are already looking forward to next year when the Joyce and Ron Petfield Trophies will be there to win again by the schools.  A very special thanks to Robyn Burke for the great organisation!

Girls teams: Ashgrove (25), St Joseph’s (45), Bardon (55), Ithaca Creek (56), Mater Dei (66), St Ambrose’s (109), and Oakleigh (160).

Boys teams: Oakleigh (31), Ashgrove (32), Bardon (65), St Joseph’s (66), Mater Dei (102), St Ambrose’s (104), Ithaca Creek (110), and Rainworth (120).

More results…