Prep School 

Year 3 and 4 had their second set of fixtures on Monday, hosting Wellington for a lovely afternoon of cricket. All the children are making great progress. Tuesday, King’s College came over for the second swimming gala of the term. The children all swam really well and although not as many personal bests as last week, there was great team comradery, well done to all!

Sadly Wednesday the rearranged matches against Wells fell victim to the rain, however, the pupils had a great afternoon as Taunton stayed dry with all the children having at least one cricket session and the girls also performing a strength and conditioning circuit!

Senior School

Cricket

The U14s played 2 shortened games on Saturday against Downside, due to the inclement weather. A 12-over game, followed by a 10-over game were both competitive with Queen’s just coming up a dozen runs short on both occasions. Everyone contributed during the afternoon, with particular congratulations to Jacob on his Queen’s cricket debut and Joe for taking his first wicket. Well done. An enthusiastic performance by all, despite the weather. Many thanks to the younger players who stepped up and competed so well and made the fixtures possible.

First XI Cricket

The teams shared optimism to get some cricket in despite the forecast and overhead conditions paid off on Saturday. The First XI hosted Downside in a reduced 15-over match destined for 2 innings per side but curtailed to one due to rain. Queen’s won the toss and chose to bat, showing a love for batting over taking advantage of conditions. The love paid off in a 47-run opening stand between Jonty and Joe. The real positives came from every batter keeping up the pace of the innings and as a team that set themselves the challenge of posting 100 in 15 overs, they hit 103/8. In defending the total our skipper used 7 bowlers all of whom protected our scoreboard pressure and helped reduce Downside to 62 all out.  

U15 girls continued their 100-Ball; Mini-League on Tuesday by hosting Taunton School. The scores were not too favourable but certainly showed how bad balls can be punished and the value of strong fielding performances to back up bowlers under pressure. The team will soon bounce back as they have their very own Broderick Tournament on Friday to back our ability and enjoy doing what we do well. 

Year 7 and 8 House Cricket was adapted around the wet weather on Wednesday. Both A and B teams played 8-a-side Pairs Softball Cricket on the Astros. The atmosphere was excellent and the competitiveness on show far exceeded what most Saturday’s bring. They made one-handed diving catches, run-out mix-ups, boundary saves, buzzards, hattrick balls and last-over thrillers. There were some excellent celebrations and some healthy sportsmanship that upheld the MCC Spirit of Cricket motto of play hard, play fair. Well done to everyone involved.

Athletics

Saturday saw the return of the annual Millfield Grand Prix athletics competition. 12 schools from across the South West took to the track to compete. The Queen’s athletics squad, depleted due to exams, stood up to the challenge and surpassed expectations once again. With impressive individual performances from Isaac (HJ), Caspar (LJ) and Kamto (100m) and equally impressive performances from the girls relay teams, the Queen’s athletes clocked up the points. The overall result of the competition saw Queen’s secure third place, finishing behind Millfield and Taunton School – just missing out on second by a few points.

Congratulations also to the sixteen athletes who have been selected to represent Taunton Area Schools in the upcoming County Champs. Kamto, Oliver J, Oli H, Evvie, Megan, Isabella, Caspar, Maddie, Harrison, Alicia, Alfie, Alaaddin, Franky, Yas, Hayden and Jacky. We wish them the best of luck.