Dunstan High School students have taken on the rest of the country in the annual summer tournament week.

Tens of thousands of secondary school students from across Aotearoa travelled to their respective tournaments this week.

Canoe polo, held in Hastings, kicked off the week followed by over 30 different events ranging from multi-day events such as rowing, to one-day events like open water swimming. 

Dunstan students have been busy training and fundraising to get away for the week. 

Christchurch was the main hub of the tournament, hosting seven events during the week. 

Dunstan students featured in the NZSS softball tournament in Christchurch with boys’ and girls’ teams travelling up. 

“Softballers are in the development phase with two very young teams after losing several senior players in the last couple of years,” Dunstan Sports Coordinator Sally Mullally said.

The DHS rowing squad among the action

There were also rowers at the Maadi Cup event at Lake Karapiro; kayakers at the NZ secondary school champs at Twizel; and mountain bikers at the South Island secondary school champs at Coronet Peak.

Grace Moir, who was competing at Coronet Peak this week, has been training for three races that all require different levels of training. Grace has had plenty of practice recently, however. She came second competing at Glenduro earlier this month. 

havebeenmany notable performances on the water

Weather has affected the softball with the second half of the first day abandoned. The first day of the mountain bike champs was also abandoned. 

Within the first two days of softball, the boys' team recorded two losses against Div 1 teams but managed to win against Kaiapoi.  

The girls' teams had one loss to start the tournament but have since had back-to-back wins against Southland Girls and Ashburton College. 

Seventeen rowers Dunstan made up a pool of 2,500 competitors. 

Stand-out performances included Angus Hanning who was in the semi-final in the under-16 single skulls. He was joined in the semi-finals by the novice girls quadruple skulls, the girls under 16 double skulls and Jed McIntish in the under 18 single skulls. 

Six crews progressed to the A and B finals which are taking place today Saturday (April 1). 

PHOTOS: Dunstan High School