ORANGE High School is one day away from claiming its first Astley Cup victory in seven years.
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Orange High backed up its crushing 485-315 victory over Bathurst High last week with a strong performance on day one against Dubbo Senior College Campus on Wednesday.
Winning all four events on day one to secure an overall points split of 297.5-102.5, Orange High takes a 195-point lead into the second and final day of the tie.
Orange now sits on 782.5 points overall and remains just 17.5 points shy of Bathurst High, which finished its campaign on 800 points, while Dubbo is effectively out of the running on 417.5.
“We got off to a great start [yesterday],” Orange High Astley Cup coordinator Tegan Dray said.
“It was the kind of performance we were really hoping for, winning all four events was fantastic. It sets us up for [today], theoretically we should only need to win one event but we want to put in a big performance in everything.”
Starting its away tie in the best possible fashion, Orange High demolished Dubbo’s tennis team 14 sets to two, an 87.5-12.5 split, before coming up trumps in the netball.
Despite a valiant effort from Dubbo, Orange High scored a close, but expected, 47-25 win - a 65-35 split.
In the first of Wednesday afternoon’s events, Orange High’s all-conquering boys’ basketball team continued its golden run in a nail-biting 32-31 (51-49) victory.
The visitors finished the day with a crushing 16-nil win in hockey, taking a mammoth 94-6 split.
“The hockey girls were fantastic, as was everyone else,” Dray said.
“The supporters were great, we’ve just listened to 70 minutes of non-stop chanting at the hockey. Everyone is really excited for [today].”
Dubbo sports organiser Tim Berry said yesterday’s performance was disappointing, but his school will start looking toward next year.
“Obviously our goal was to try and win the Astley Cup and we haven’t been able to achieve that but we still have four events to go and we will go out there to try and win those,” Berry said.
“We’ve got a chance to win some sports and start building for next year, so even though we can’t win it overall we can still get something out of it.”
Athletics (9.15am), boys’ and girls’ football (11.30am and 1.15pm respectively) and rugby league (2.30pm) will round out the Astley Cup competition today in Dubbo.
