Read more to hear about Ryan’s exciting opportunity to play baseball in the USA and Fiorella’s amazing achievements in athletics.
Ryan Luker
Over the Easter long weekend, Ryan represented his Ryde Hawks Baseball League in the State Championships. His team excelled and have advanced to the National Baseball Tournament in South Australia this week. If successful, they have the opportunity to represent Australia in the USA Junior League World Series in August.
Ryan has been training 3 - 4 times a week, travelling all across Sydney, juggling schoolwork and other extracurricular activities, and loving it!
Congratulations Ryan, we wish you the best of luck at Nationals and onto the Junior League World Series.
Fiorella Collins
We love sharing the stories of our students and their phenomenal achievements, both within and outside of the College. This week we are excited to share with you the story of one of our Distance Education students, Fiorella, and her ongoing excellence in the field of athletics. While she enjoys all athletic events, Fiorella’s focus is the throwing events - discus and shot put - and she has represented the College at State All-Schools and Nationals in these events. She was the Schools National Champion for discus at 10 years old and despite limited training opportunities and cancelled events during the pandemic, this year she won all three State events, while also placing 3rd in shot put, and became the Australian Track and Field National Champion in discus again this year at 13, while placing 6th in shot put, in a very competitive field.
Even with the La Niña weather event putting a literal dampener on her training, Fiorella has continued to work hard and is particularly appreciative of her coach, who has won ‘Coach of the Year’ due to his humour, encouragement and expertise. Fi herself has a particular passion for motivating others and she worked as an assistant coach at her athletics and tennis club. She is also fascinated by the way that her in-classroom learning and extracurricular activities combine. The importance of physics (and ballet!) in the technical details of the throwing events, or the way she can represent the power of women’s strength in athletics through a collage, or Picasso-inspired artwork.
Fiorella’s goals are to continue to perfect her technique as both events are highly technical, however she is quick to say that her focus is the process, not a specific destination. The real joy of athletics for her comes from the community and lifelong friendships made, where you cheer your competitors on and learn from every experience, win or lose. She says, “you probably won't remember what you threw or where you came, but you'll always remember the fun you had and the friends you made."
Congratulations Fi on all you have achieved so far, our ACC community is cheering you on!
