Napier Girls High School midcourter Briana Stephenson was a member of the New Zealand Secondary Schools netball team which won last week's international tournament in Auckland with an unbeaten run.
In the final of the event, played at The Trusts Arena, Henderson, the Kiwis beat their Aussie counterparts 31-21. Stephenson played all of the matches for the side apart from the two against the New Zealand Maori Secondary Schools team which included fellow NGHS Year 12 student and midcourter Jaydi Chaffey-Taylor, who was excellent.
Stephenson's team, which had earlier beaten the Aussies 33-25 in pool play, beat Chaffey-Taylor's 37-26 and 29-28 and were considered lucky to have won the second encounter. The New Zealand Maori team beat Fiji 43-13 in the bronze medal playoff.
For Stephenson her gold medal ended a memorable month of international sport. Last month, she returned from an athletics meeting in Tahiti with five gold medals.
Other teams to compete at the tournament were a New Zealand-based Pacific Challenge side, the Australian Indigenous team, South Africa, the Australia-based Pacific All Stars and Malaysia's Bukit Jalil.
