THE WESTERNPORT Steelers have signed two new imports for the 2018 season who are set to make an impact on and off the court. German championship victor Dylan Travis arrived in Melbourne last month and has made an immediate impact at the club running the Summer Basketball Camp at the Somerville Secondary College two weeks ago. Travis, who finished his college career at Florida Southern College in 2016 with a number of honours in All-American teams, will be joined by European basketballer Attirah Munir who will arrive later this month. Munir will join the Women’s Steelers team and will help…
Author: Ben Triandafillou
WHEELCHAIR tennis player Riley Dumsday has broken into the top 10 world junior boy’s rankings after taking out the Melbourne Open the week before last. The Mornington Elite Tennis Academy junior pushed through the scorching conditions at the Hume Community Tennis Centre to win the under-18 boys singles and finish runners-up in the mixed doubles. Riley, 12, is now ranked 10th in the world and said he was really happy to win the tournament but even happier to have ticked off one of his main goals for the year. “I’m really happy to make it into the top 10,” he…
AFTER narrowly missing out on qualifying for the past two Commonwealth Games, Peninsula Boxer Jason Whateley will join 13 of Australia’s top boxers at the 2018 Gold Coast Commonwealth Games in April. Whateley is hoping to claim a gold medal in the Men’s heavyweight division (91kg) and will also be joined by Peninsula Boxing head coach Marcos Amado who has been appointed assistant coach of the Australian Boxing team. Coming off a silver medal at the 2010 Commonwealth Games Qualifiers and again earning silver at the qualifiers in 2014, Whateley made his biggest change to date and joined Amado at…
JUNIOR golfer Molly McLean has had a golf club in her hand since she was able to walk and now she’s teeing off with a GA Handicap of 11.6 at just 11-years-old. The Rosebud Country Club golfer has grown up with the sport all around her as her father, Craig McLean, is currently a teaching professional at the Sorrento Golf Club. For the past five months Molly has had her heart set on making the Pacific School Games in Adelaide and after a successful qualifying round at the Sandhurst Golf Club in August, she will now be joining the Victorian…
JUNIOR wheelchair tennis player Riley Dumsday, of Mornington, has been victorious at the Australian National Junior Wheelchair Championships just one year after making his debut in the tournament last year. Dumsday, 12, competed in the under-18s mixed singles at the National Tennis Centre in Melbourne over the weekend of Friday 17 November. He was just getting used to the sport when he entered the tournament last year but felt much more comfortable on court this time in as he cruised through the opening rounds of his round-robin pool in straight sets. Dumsday then went on to fight out a three-hour…
IN JUST over a year, junior tennis player Emmerson Priest, of Mt Eliza has risen from competing in entry level competition for the Mornington Tennis Club to sitting in the top 50 of Victoria’s under-12 girl’s category. Her commitment and rapid improvement has seen her move from section six in 2016 to now representing her club in section one and competing in Australian ranking tournament events. Emmerson has had a full schedule over the past few weeks where she has represented the Mornington region at the Judy Dalton Cup and competed in the 2017 Better Tennis Frankston Cup, an Australian…
TAKING up boxing to protect himself and his family at the young age of 12, professional welterweight boxer Adam Kaoullas is now giving back to the sport by empowering the vulnerable. Now aged 23, and heading into his fourth professional fight on Friday (10 November), Kaoullas has been teaching young junior boxers and adults self-defence through boxing. Currently coaching upwards of 200 boxers across three separate gyms, Kaoullas says coaching the young kids and building their confidence is definitely the most rewarding class he runs. “Boxing kept me on the right path as I used it as an outlet to…
AFTER just her third season of football, 18-year-old Bridie Kennedy, of Dromana has been drafted to Carlton for the 2018 AFLW season. A standout player through both her talent and a pink ribbon she wears, the Year 12 Padua College student was selected to join the Blues at pick number 36 last Wednesday 18 October. Kennedy was interviewed by all four of the Victorian sides in the lead-up to the draft but said she didn’t really expect to be picked up by Carlton. “I had no idea who I would get drafted to,” she said. “It came down to who…
MEMBERS of the Rosebud sporting community can look forward to a new sporting pavilion complex at Olympic Park Recreation Reserve, Rosebud. Council approved the tender for works on Tuesday 10 October and it is anticipated that construction will begin in January 2018 with hopes for it to be completed by September next year. The new single level pavilion has been designed to better meet the needs of local sporting groups and will include: six multipurpose change rooms, unisex toilet and shower facilities, store rooms, a first aid room, accessible toilets and external public toilets. Contract works also include refurbishment of…
IT HAS been a massive year for up and coming 14-year-old soccer player, Patrick Hogan, whose endless hours of training has taken him to the peak of junior soccer in Australia. The Padua College student returned from Coffs Harbour on Sunday 1 October after taking out the National Youth Championships title with the Victorian under-14s side. Starting the trials in January with 200 other young soccer players, Hogan made his way through to the final cut for the Victorian side and was picked to represent the state in the final squad of 16. Hogan, who played this season with the…
A FORMER Australian professional golfer regards the Mornington Golf Club as the “club with the most potential in Australia”. Mark Allen, who played competitively for 15 years, told the 1116 SEN listeners on Saturday 16 September that the club “has the potential to be something out of this world” with the right amount of funding. The Mornington Golf Club has seen an increase in memberships of nearly 30 per cent since 2015 and this Saturday 7 October they will take their first step in reaching this “potential” when they open their new 150-metre par three. The land which was once…
CURRENT World Iron Woman and Nutri Grain series champion, Harriet Brown, will join the Mornington Life Saving Club as their new Water Coach and Youth Mentor next month. After saying goodbye to the club’s previous coach, John Vains, the Mornington Life Saving Club has designed their next phase of their coaching structure to help their athletes continue to develop and have a mentor under which they can thrive. Mornington Life Saving Club Nipper captain Damian Brice said the club’s main focus is to encourage participation and having someone like Brown gives the Nippers someone to look up to. “We felt…
GO KARTING talent Cadel Ambrose has concluded a thrilling season with a victory in the final round of the Australian kart championships on Sunday 3 September. The victory pushed nine-year-old Cadel into third place of the cadet-nine Australian kart championships overall standings. Taking to the track on Todd Road, Port Melbourne Cadel had to make up an 11 point difference in the fifth and final round to make it into the top three but the challenge just gave him more drive to succeed. “He was pretty excited heading into the final round,” Cadel’s mother Suzie Morrell said. “He was sitting…
THE Mornington Peninsula is set to come alive with hundreds of mountain bikers this October when the 2017 Red Hill Gravity Enduro takes to the trails of Arthurs Seat. The Red Hill Gravity Enduro presented by Mercedes-Benz Mornington will be held on October 7-8 at Hillview Community Reserve, Boundary Rd Dromana. The two-day event sold out of entries within weeks, with numbers increasing from 190 to 250 participants in just its second year. Red Hill Riders Mountain Bike Club president Terence Toh credits the rise of the Gravity Enduro discipline internationally to the event’s popularity. “The Red Hill Gravity Enduro…
THE Better Tennis community donned footy guernseys last week in support of one of their junior players who earlier this year was diagnosed with leukaemia. Combining with their ‘Epic Rally Week’ fundraiser and the Fight Cancer Foundation’s ‘Footy Colours Week’, Better Tennis raised more than $5000 in support of eight-year-old Dzan Tanovic, with more donations to be counted. Tanovic was diagnosed with acute lymphoblastic leukaemia in February and has been in hospital ever since undergoing bone marrow transplants. The cancer progressed quickly with signs showing almost immediately, according to Mt Eliza tennis coach David Laird. “We had a tennis lesson…
PENINSULA Boxing will have three representatives heading to the National Boxing Championships in November after a successful week of boxing around the world. Representing Australia, heavy-weight boxer Jason Whateley faced Olympic and World champion boxers at the AIBA World Championships in Hamburg, Germany last week. Starting with a bye in the opening round, Whateley moved on to the second round to face Indian Olympic boxer Sumit Sangwan. Whateley stormed home in the second and third rounds to secure his victory, almost stopping Sangwan before the final bell with an eight count in the last round and headed towards the quarter…
ROSEBUD Country Club member James Marchesani has strung four impressive rounds of golf together to finish tied second in the $1.5 million Fiji International on Sunday 20 August. Marchesani finished just four strokes shy of fellow Australian, Jason Norris, closing his final round off with four birdies and not a single blemish on the back nine holes of the Natadola Bay Championship Golf Course. Finishing tied third at the Victorian PGA Championship earlier this year, Marchesani was confident that he was building up to this performance. “I felt like my game had been warming up recently. I had played well…
MEMBERS of the lifesaving and aquatic community from the Mornington Peninsula were awarded for their dedication to saving lives at the 14th annual Life Saving Victoria Award of Excellence on Saturday 29 July. More than 280 guests, including Victorian lifesavers, aquatic industry members and dignitaries, attended the gala event. Bonbeach Life Saving Club collected three of the four major awards with Lloyd Thomas from Bonbeach LSC being awarded the John Wishart Memorial Medal as Lifesaver of the Year for his ‘outstanding contribution to lifesaving’. Bonbeach LSC was also presented with Outstanding Achievement of the Year for their 2017 CALD Surf…
PENINSULA Boxing has made another dent in the Australian boxing scene with all three of their boxers making it to the finals of the Australian Elite Golden Gloves in Western Australia on Friday 28 July. Representatives Jack Gipp, April Franks and 2016 Rio Olympian Jason Whateley left nothing in the ring to return home with two gold championship belts. Jack Gipp, who hadn’t fought since the Youth World Championships in Russia last year, made a dominant return, beating one of the local Western Australian favorites, Keira Ruston, on the Friday night. Gipp went on to defeat another tough Western Australian…
FOUR women from the Mornington Peninsula Hockey Club have been selected to join Victorian state sides playing in Newcastle, NSW, in late September. Emma Brown and Kim Trezise are in the over-35 Victorian Masters team. Trezise, 39, of Dromana will return to the over-35s after playing last year with the representative side while Brown, 35, of Mornington will be making her debut for the over-35 state team. “I started my family young and with university and then work, hockey took a back seat so I’m very happy to be in a representative side again,” Trezise said. “My family is very…
A MORNINGTON tennis player has made the most of a devastating situation. Riley Dumsday, 12, was diagnosed with a rare childhood condition called Perthes’ disease in 2011, which has made him unable to put pressure on his right leg and forced him to use a wheelchair. But Dumsday hasn’t let the condition hold him back and returned home with two trophies from the Queensland Wheelchair Tennis Open on 28 June. He took out the under-18 doubles with partner Marcus Lentini and finished runner-up in boys under-18s singles. Riley’s father, Steve Dumsday, said Riley had come a long way since starting…