Volleyball rep player Mya-Rose Wilson aiming higher

Te Puke High School volleyball player Mya-Rose Wilson. Photo / Tony T Photography

Mya-Rose Wilson reckons playing volleyball as a short person provides more enjoyment.

Mya-Rose will this weekend line up in the Under-17 Bay of Plenty Girls’ development team at the inter-provincial championships in Napier. She is the school’s only representative.

She says she feels proud to have made the team after last year being a non-travelling reserve for the Under-16 Bay of Plenty team.

“When I saw my name there I was just really proud of myself and I feel more proud because it’s only me from school so our school is being seen.”

She says as well as playing, she hopes to be able to watch and learn from other games.

Mya-Rose represents the school in the girls’ volleyball and netball A teams - despite being just 164cm tall.

She began playing volleyball in Year 9 and that year she and Tempest Cassin won the junior secondary school beach volleyball national title.

“We won that and I decided I had a passion for volleyball and just followed through with volleyball.”

The pair will team up again on the beach at the end of the year but, despite the success, Mya-Rose says she prefers the indoor version of the game.

She says she plays beach so she can keep playing the game during the summer, and to enhance her skills for indoor volleyball, even though she thinks with two players, and the difficulty of moving on sand makes the game harder.

Mya-Rose is the shortest player in the Bay of Plenty team.

“Lots of people think that for volleyball you need to be tall so you can get every ball but it feels better when you play as a short person as you get more enjoyment out of the game.”

Mya-Rose hopes that having now made it into the development team, she can improve her game and be selected in the Bay of Plenty Under-19 team next year.