It was an exciting finish to the domestic year of competition with the State Championships last weekend. The team had some great performances picking up a number of medals over the weekend. This was the culmination of the State Championships for IRB, Pool, Champion Lifesaver, Belt Racing and R&R. The Club finished 5th Overall.
Image gallery at the bottom, thanks to Carlo Tenaglia, Dara Mills, Glenda Schulz, Louise Nuku.
Below is a review of each of the areas from the Team Managers.
Beachie Review – Carl Mills
The 2018 State champs for Mullaloo beach competitors provided some great results, the occasional injury, slight heartbreak and plenty of real team spirit.
Saturday morning saw some fantastic 2km beach run performances. Silver to Ben Tickner and Ben Hillen, Bronze to Jo-Anna Hayward, Ellie Marlow and Heather Bytheway – was a great way to start our competition. Corey Bartle, Zara Martin and Darren Bean-Hannigan also produced personal bests in a great sign for the future.
Beach sprints and relays were up next. Cooper Schulz and Mitch Eady ran close fourths in their final, while our under 17 boys did really well to bring home bronze in their sprint relay. Our under 15 boys and under 17 girls were both unfortunately disqualified in their relays, however, given injuries that the boys pushed through and last minute changes for the girls, the Club should be very proud of their efforts. Special thanks to Ellie Black and Sarah May for filling in at the last minute.
Sunday was all about the flags arena and Mitch Eady didn’t disappoint his growing tribe of fans. He fought all the way to the final two and just missed out, winning silver in a great performance. A special mention regarding effort and application must go to Aaron Gigney (4th in under 17 flags) and Ellie Marlow (7th in under 17 flags). Aaron and Ellie are both super consistent with their training. The enthusiasm they show for beach events is infectious.
The absolutely most pleasing part of the weekend was the team spirit and camaraderie shown by our team. The weekend showed what a great beachie team we are beginning to grow. The future is so bright we may have to wear shades.
Surf Boats – Mark Donnelly/Stuart Clarke
So they say Western Australia is ‘Rottnest Lake’ for surf boat carnivals? Not on Sunday. The ex-cyclone swell came through in the morning to produce some of the most powerful and spectacular waves we’ve seen at Scarborough.
The Mullaloo sweeps had a chat beforehand and decided to play the conservative game – that we’d pick our way out through the break and make wise decisions on the choice of waves to catch.
And it worked a treat – with all crews making safe journeys out and back (in warm-ups and races), plus picked up some fabulous ‘bling’.
Our depth in the surf boat section was shown by the Bronze medal in the boat relay – three legs of men (Barracudas – Peter Kennedy, Peter Hainsworth, Mathew Colbourne, Jake Platt swept by Mark Donnelly), women (Marlins – Rachel Green, Tamara Yujnovich, Elise Dagnia, Helen Grimes swept by Stuart Clarke) and U19 crews (Storm Troopers – Tyler Nuku, Cooper Schulz, Luke Triston, Sean Coventry swept by Stuart Clarke).
There was a fabulous State Champs debut by our two U19 Male crews — with the Stormtroopers winning Silver (Tyler Nuku, Cooper Schulz, Luke Triston, Sean Coventry swept by Stuart Clarke) and the Vikings winning Gold (James Colbourne, Connor Marlow, Caleb Palandri, Wes Thomson swept by Richard Calnon).
The u19 female category was canceled due to the heavy conditions. Hopefully, our Neptune’s Daughters will get an opportunity to race if rescheduled.
All in all, it was a great effort from our sweeps and crews. Thanks Maureen Donnelly for organising us all on the beach. Well done.
Youth Area– Vicki Rasmussen/Frank Scullino
We have such a great group of youth at the Club, and many were at the State Championships over the weekend giving their all. We had many competitors represented in the finals which show we are developing our depth again.
Our youth marchpast team started the weekend for us with a rousing Silver Medal for Harriet, Ava, Ruby, Danielle, Aimee, Neve, Zara, Leah, Holly, Annika, India-Rose and Katie.
Some of the highlights for the weekend included qualifying 4 teams in the U/15 Board relay final and we finished 2nd with a silver medal for Neve, Rosie and Leah. In our Board Rescue, we had 2 teams make it through to the final out of 8, winning a silver medal for Leah and Maisy.’Our Boys struggled a little bit, as we had mostly U14’s and competing against the U15’s in the team events. They did extraordinarily well in a tough competitive group and it looks good for next season when they will grow a little more against the opposition. No medals this season in the water arena, but some great efforts overall. Many of the boys are developing their skills and they will be back next season stronger again.
Sunday was another interesting day when much of the luck ran with competitors coming from behind to jag waves and come past the leading competitors. There were so many of our competitors leading only to be beaten at the end by waves from the back and end up with a 4th with no bling to show for their efforts. So many tears! We did manage a Bronze medal in the U14 Ironwoman – Maisy with Rosie and Leah finishing 4th and 5th.
Women’s Area – Mandy Lee
These ladies are a credit to Mullaloo with their enthusiasm and support for each other – two under 19’s — Soraya Lee, Jo Maynard and 6 Under 17’s – Lillyan Rosich, Ellie Black, Sarah May, Darcey Brooks, Caitlin Knight, Asha McDonald-Razvi. They did well to combine and make up teams for almost every Under 17 and Under 19 team event held on Saturday, even surprisingly entering an Under 17 female double ski team in the Under 19 event and coming away with a bronze medal – when they had never been on a double before and probably couldn’t even reach the pedals! We medalled every team event on Saturday in either the Under 17 or Under 19 categories, or both, and often with more than half the under 19 team being made up of our Under 17’s.
Sunday saw mostly individual events held, along with the trophy Taplin relay events. We were down a couple of girls on Sunday for these, and then with the amazing conditions, we lost another one – a dislocated shoulder and an ambulance ride – but impressively Darcey still made it to the wind up on Sunday night! Because of the depth of ability we have in our women’s ranks and their willingness to have a go at most things, it was actually no problem changing our teams around to meet the requirement of competition when others were missing.
Some very impressive individual races also came from every single one of these girls in large surf conditions they had never experienced before, certainly not on the ski. Yes, there was carnage in the Under 17 ski but there was no hesitation in these girls attempts to give it a go. In addition to personal achievements racing in these conditions, we did claim more medals culminating in a very successful weekend. Thanks, ladies for being a pleasure to hang with on the beach all weekend!
Men’s Area – Gayle Gould
With only a small team this year, like the women’s area, we had many of our competitors in the U17’s competing up in U19’s and open events. Thank you to all those competitors who came along to compete and help out with teams.
The enthusiasm and commitment were absolutely fantastic from the team and Saturday we spent most of the day in team events picking up a few medals along the way, including the Bronze in U17 Taplin with Ben Hillen, Sam Dobson and Jack Wilson and Silver in U19 Board rescue with Ben Hillen and Harry Jones.
Sunday was a very tough day with huge surf in a tough Arena. With mostly individual events it was going to be difficult to win medals. However, we had some exceptional results including Silver in the U21 Ski Race – Alex Baker and State Champion for U17 Surf Race – Jack Wilson.
Officials & Water Safety – Sandy Clarke (Carnival Referee)
Mullaloo was well represented for this Championship. Thanks to our senior official Mark Hills (Emergency Services Officer) and what a job Mark had particularly with the Sunday conditions! It was through the support of a great team that the championships ran successfully.
Thank you to our Club officials coordinator and official – Dawn Jones, our officials – which in many cases covered both days, Jesper Rasmussen, John Hillen, Kathryn Redden, Alison Gerrard, Glenda Schulz, Marni Black, Cindy de Bomford and Terry Upston.
In the powercraft area we had Jacqui MacGregor – also assisting powercraft – water safety carnival coordination and Rob Young who drove both days as judge in boat — awesome job! Thanks also Todd Bartle and Alistair Cook for completing our Mullaloo Water Safety roster in IRBs and Sarah Gregson and Kirsten Dobson in the water.
For all of our competitors over the weekend, they never stopped trying and always gave their best for Mullaloo SLSC. We look forward to the Australian Championships at Scarborough in a few weeks’ time.
Carlo Tenaglia – GM Surfsports