Netball Upper North Island Champions!

After powering through the Auckland Championships to claim the Auckland Netball Premier Championship title for the second year in a row, the Premier Netball girls stayed in Auckland during Tournament Week to contest the Upper North Island Championships. Unlike the other sporting codes that played their Nationals last week, netball has this extra regional round to complete to qualify for the nationals later in the year.

They went into the earlier Auckland finals undefeated and went on to the finals to beat Mount Albert Grammar School (MAGS) 38-36 in a tense, action packed game, incredibly close game.

During Tournament Week, the girls took a one point loss to Howick College but won all other games against Hamilton Girls, Westlake Girls, Botany College, One Tree Hill College, Sacred Heart, Mt Albert Grammar (MAGS) and St Pauls. Once again, mirroring all finals in recent times, the girls faced old foes, MAGS in the final. Games against MAGS and Saint Kentigern are always fiercely contested and unbelievably close. Once again the final game was almost too close to call with just one point separating the teams in Saint Kentigern’s favour 39-38.

Tori Kolose, Tayla Earle and Ashleigh Garner were named in the tournament team with Tayla named player of the tournament. Well done girls!

The team is led by co-captains Georgia Ropati and Tori Kolose. These players are leaders both on and off the court and are integral to our training sessions, decisions made and, ultimately, to our success.

We now wish the girls well for the National Tournament in Rotorua taking place in October.

Premier Team: Tayla Earle, Ashleigh Garner, Jaymie Kolose, Victoria Kolose, Mahina Paul, Lauren Pickett. Kayla Robertson-Tekii, Georgia Ropati, Hannah Ward.