Minnows Wrap Up State

The 2024 State Age titles, once again, saw the competition being hosted by the Sydney Northern Beaches with the events being staged between North Steyne and Queenscliff Surf Clubs for the Water and Beach events and at Freshwater Surf Club for the R&R, scheduled over 4 days from 7th to 10th March. The entry numbers were the biggest in quite a few years and it was set-up for some great competition over the 4 days where every medal and point would be hard earned. With the great training that the coaches had put in, we were quietly confident in the team we had selected would do the Club proud.

The strong competition turned out to be true with a tough first day of competition but over the next few days we began to make serious inroads into the overall points ladder with all areas of the Club contributing with the point score. Our first victory came in the U9 Female Surf Race, with Ella Jenkin putting in a fantastic performance before backing it up again, this time with her team mates in the U9 Female Surf Team event. Over on the beach, Alex Onley brought home a silver medal in the U10 Beach Flags. All the while these great results were happening, the water team were quietly getting through the rounds and picking up some victories in the team events with our U11 Female team dominating the team events, winning the Surf Team, Board Rescue and Board Relay events, following up the clean sweep they had the previous year. Not to be outdone, Kathryn Jordan and Ally Folsom teamed up to take gold in the U13 Female Board Rescue event.

These great results continued over the final 2 days of competition, as our older beach competitors joined in and contributed to more wins with Marnie Laurence taking gold in the U12 Female sprint, winning the event for the 4th year in a row and making it 5 years unbeaten in the distance. Marnie also won the beach flags, winning back the gold medal she had last won as an U9. Both our All Age Relays, Beach and Board, showed the strength of the Club, placing 2nd and 3rd respectively, a remarkable achievement for the board team, having qualified for the event for the first time in a long time in 2023 to now get in the medals.

Up at Freshwater, the R&R team were also racking up the points placing first in the U13-15 5 Person R&R, U15 2 Person, U14 2 Person R&R and U12 2 Person R&R.
With confidence running high, and following on the success they had in the team events, Sophie Rowles showed her strength in winning both the individual Surf Race and Ironperson, while Kathryn Jordan retained the Surf Race she won in 2023 – a remarkable achievement considering the broke her leg, in competition, earlier in the season. The last medal in the last event of the competition went to our Beach Captain, Richard Nestor, winning the U14 Male Beach flags.

Despite the slow start to the points score, Coogee finished the strongest of all the Clubs, but unfortunately couldn’t narrow the gap up to North Bondi, placing 2nd  overall to cap off a fantastic State Age titles. As per last year, it was so please to see all areas (Water, Sand and &R&) contribute to the success across the 4 days with 34 medals won, really showing the overall strength of the Club:

•          18 - Gold
•          9 - Silver
•          7 - Bronze

View the full listing in the previous post.