The South African Schools’ National Championships is a special sporting event during which rowing teams from various schools across South Africa compete to determine who's the best.
Making it through to the final is an achievement in itself; the St Stithians Boys’ College rowers made it into the top eight in the country, vying for a gold, silver or bronze medal.
Earlier this month, the boys took to the water in smaller boats to compete in the Singles and Pairs.
The U14 scullers were outmatched this time.
Armand van der Colf made it comfortably through to the finals after placing fourth in the head race and pushing through a competitive semi-final.
In the final, he worked extremely hard in the second half and managed to come through all but one in the field to place second to win himself a silver medal.
The U16 pair, Dylan Schmidt and Michael Laburn, came through their heat in second, doing what needed to be done to get themselves into the A final where they had a good race, coming home in third, ahead of the two quick St Benedict’s crews.
Saturday was a tougher day for Saints' rowing as the boys qualified three boats in the A finals but didn’t succeed in picking up a medal.
The U14 Double, Easton Allman and Vuyo Sibanda, have come a long way in a short time to take an impressive fifth position.
The U14 Octuple just missed the final, settling for ninth place.
The U15 Quad qualified themselves for the A final to finish eighth, while the U16 Eight came home in fifth place - a gutsy performance.
The Open Quad were 10th.
The boys dusted themselves off for a final round of racing two days later but again struggled to convert A finals into medals.
Two of the four U14 Quads qualified themselves for the semi-finals, making the top 16 after the head race of 44 boats. Unfortunately, neither made it through to the A final.
The U15 Double didn’t manage it on the day and had to settle for sixth place.
The U16 Four coxed by Campbell White and rowed by Dylan Schmidt, Michael Laburn, Liam Keegan and Nashe Mucharambeyi were determined to get themselves a medal, finishing 0.1 of a second before the St Andrews crew and marginally off gold-medal pace.
Sheldon Nash and Sam Elliott took to the water in the final race of the weekend in the First Doubles and ground out an incredible sixth place against some much bigger competition.
It was a great result after a tough season. Saints Rowing has built some great momentum over the past couple of years and the school looks forward to continued success next season.