Coast schools battle for national slots
What you need to know:
- With just over three weeks until the National Secondary Schools Term One Games in Embu, stiff competition is expected as various regions chose their representatives for the annual showpiece.
- Nairobi Region held their games last weekend to select their teams. Rift Valley and Coast Region Championships are on this week at St Anthony’s Boys Kitale and Kenyatta High School in Mwatate respectively.
- Western, Lake, Eastern, Central and North Eastern Regions will hold their games next week. Term One Games feature basketball, rugby 15s, hockey, swimming alongside handball and athletics, which until last year, were part of the now abolished Term Two A Games.
With just over three weeks until the National Secondary Schools Term One Games in Embu, stiff competition is expected as various regions chose their representatives for the annual showpiece.
Nairobi Region held their games last weekend to select their teams. Rift Valley and Coast Region Championships are on this week at St Anthony’s Boys Kitale and Kenyatta High School in Mwatate respectively.
Western, Lake, Eastern, Central and North Eastern Regions will hold their games next week. Term One Games feature basketball, rugby 15s, hockey, swimming alongside handball and athletics, which until last year, were part of the now abolished Term Two A Games.
The national competition is due April 6 to 10. It will be a battle zone at Kenyatta High School, as Coast schools battle for top honours as well as tickets to represent the region in Embu starting Thursday.
The hosting county, Taita Taveta, will look to continue their domination in athletics.
The County Athletics body set up an Athletics camp in the region, with the support of the governor Granton Samboja to motivate budding talent to nurture their skills.
Mombasa County’s Aga Khan Academy won the boys’ basketball title when the games were last held at the same venue in 2016 and went ahead to successfully defend their title last year in Mazeras.
Whether they can make it three in row this time round remains to be seen, with Shimo la Tewa Secondary School, who snatched the Mombasa County basketball title from their noses last week and Kaya Tiwi, the Kwale County champions, standing out as the main challengers.
White House Academy will be favourites to retain the boys’ and girls’ handball titles as they continue to reap the benefits of the sound youth program started by the school.
Coast Secondary Schools Sports Association chairman, Juma Bora is confident that the best teams will earn their tickets for the Nationals despite the financial difficulties the schools encountered after the government failed to release the schools’ activity funds as earlier promised.
"I know it was not easy for these counties to select their representatives, but now that we have crossed that bridge, I expect it to be a smooth sailing,” Bora, who is also the principal of Msambweni Secondary School said.
Basketball action, which will be at Kenyatta High School, will see Aga Khan Academy open their title defence against Kaya Tiwi Boys in a pool A match, while the girls’ defending champions Kaya Tiwi Girls start their title chase with a match against Aga Khan Academy girls’ team.
Rugby matches, whose draws were due to be done Wednesday evening, will be staged at the Wundanyi Stadium.
In Rift Valley, schools will be looking to secure their knockout places in day two of the action on Thursday.
