BASKETBALL
Western Springs College (WSC) basketball attended the Triple X Basketball Tournament held over the ANZAC weekend period. It was the first hit out for the season for the WSC teams as part of their calendar year. WSC had 4 teams take part in the tournament with the U15, U17 and U19 Boys.
The tournament was a great success for the WSC teams as they got to make new friendships both locally and internationally. WSC had the opportunity to play against some very good teams from the Waikato, Wellington, Tonga, Samoa and Australia. (Dodgers Australia)
For many of the WSC students this was the first time that many of them had played in a major tournament. The level of competition was very high especially in the U17 Boys division with representative teams from Central Country Basketball, Porirua and the heavily favoured Australian Team.
In the U15s it was a tight battle between the 2 WSC teams taking part meeting in their final game of the tournament with the WSC B team taking a 1 nil lead of the A team during the pool rounds. The upset A team had a point to prove beating the B team in the dying seconds to end the tournament on a high finishing 3rd and 4th in their respected age group.
In the U19s the boys rallied hard against the much bigger teams from Kelston High, Tonga and Central Country. The boys played well but came up short finishing 4th for the tournament.
The highlight of the tournament must go to the U17 Boys led by captain Izaiah Radovanovich and ever present Tiaan McIntyre closing out a close semi-final in the dying seconds against representative team Central Country Basketball. The Grand Final was another close encounter against a well drilled representative team Porirua who beat the favoured Australians in their semi-final. The game was tight from start to finish but the boys held it together to walk away with the win to become the first TXB U17 Boys Tournament Champions for 2016.
With the success of the U17 Boys WSC had further success with athletes being selected into the tournament teams to travel to Las Vegas, USA later in the year to represent TXB NZ at an Invitational Tournament.
Congratulations to the following athletes for making the tournament team:
U15 BOYS – Nathaniel Lonie, Liam Holwerda, Sean Agustine, Ethan Ryan, Nico Johnson and Wodjiouma Coulibali.
U17 BOYS – Izaiah Radovanovich, Tiaan McIntyre, Ike Conway and Mahima Mane-Chapman.
U19 BOYS – Jono Lee (Ex Student)
NETBALL
Netball has seen an increase in players and teams, as fourteen teams step out to represent Springs for the 2016 season. With the grading rounds being played, we desperately seek several coaches and managers to complete our list of teams. If interested, feel free to contact Kau Tepaki in Waiora.
ORIENTEERING
On the last weekend of the holidays a team of 9 girls competed in the North Island Secondary Schools Orienteering Champs in Napier. We travelled down in a school van and stayed with our competitors in the Napier Boys High School Hostel. The first event, which was a sprint, was around Tamatea Intermediate School. The second day was the long event, which had many steep hills and challenged our navigational skills. Congratulations to Anna Cory-Wright who came first in the junior girls grade on this day. The relay was held on our last day in Napier. We had three composite teams and two complete WSC ones competing in this event. Congratulations to Kate Hannay, Anna Cory-Wright and Sylvie Frater whose relay team won the junior girls event, becoming Auckland and North Island Champions. There was a nerve-racking uphill sprint for the podium places, where we were closely followed by Baradene
and Dio teams. Well done to Anna Cory-Wright and Sylvie Frater for getting into the Auckland Regionals Team. Thank you to Guy Cory-Wright and Bronwyn Rosie who drove us down, and supported all the girls during the event.
|