Windhoek
The Deutsche Höhere Privatschule in Windhoek hosted the First National Bank Interschool Table Tennis Championships last weekend.
It was clear from the outset that the powerhouses of schools table tennis were not going to have things own their way, with a few newcomers immediately making their presence felt, while Windhoek Gymnasium – returning after a long absence – were surprise semi-finalists, with debutants Windhoek High School also competing fiercely.
The boys competed in two groups of five schools each, with the top two teams from each group advancing to the semi-finals. The day’s biggest casualty was Rehoboth High School, a finalist from 2014, who failed to reach the semi-finals after losing to Windhoek Gymnasium and Mariental High School in the group stages.
Windhoek Gymnasium/Deutsche Höhere Privatschule (DHPS) Elnatan Private/Mariental High Schools contested the semi-finals.
In the first semi-final, Kean Tait played his heart out for Windhoek Gymnasium, but the DHPS team of Ethan Januarie, Yannick Bohn, Patrick Beggs and Andreas Fechter proved too strong for Tait and the two van der Walt siblings (debutants Tjaart and Kosie). DHPS emerged as victors after the first semi-final, beating Windhoek Gymnasium 3-0.
The other semi-final was settled in straight sets with the consistency of Zwandile Kooper, Ewan Orlam and Delton Dreyer of Mariental High School coming out tops against the inexperienced trio of Elnatan (Beon Carstens, Lloyd Mills and Dieter Lenhardt). The team from Elnatan, however, put up a brave attempt before going down 3-0.
The stage was then set for a great final and DHPS was first out of the blocks when Bohn beat reigning Namibian junior champion, Zwandile Kooper in a tight game. The next two matches went in favour of Mariental High School that saw Dreyer defeat Januarie, before Dreyer joined forces with Orlam to overpower the recently crowned Namibian senior men’s doubles bronze medalists.
Kooper learnt from his mistakes in the first match and sealed victory for the Marientalers by accounting for Januarie in an action-packed match that ended 3-1 in favour of Kooper.
Play-off for third place was battled out between Windhoek Gymnasium and Elnatan Private School. Elnatan, the 2014 champions, found the going tough against the newcomers and had to settle for fourth place.
As widely expected, the girls division was won by new entrants, Windhoek Gymnasium, who had the luxury of having the two top-seeded junior national players in the team this year.
Windhoek Gymnasium cruised to victory, courtesy of Kaitlyn Beukes and Reese Saunderson. The Holy Cross Convent team, consisting of Jana Hein, Tanya Master, Nangula Iita and Kalapuse Ashipala repeated their feat of 2014 by winning silver again. Third place went to Rehoboth High, represented by Melanie van Wyk and Zandria Benz.
The final results are as follows:
Boys / Girls
Gold: Mariental High School / Windhoek Gymnasium
Silver: DHPS / Holy Cross Convent
Bronze: Windhoek Gymnasium / Rehoboth High School