Ball claims hat-trick at table tennis champs

It has been an intense and exciting month for the region's secondary school's table tennis players as they did battle in various competitions.
Last week, 60 Northland students contested the novice singles, where the top eight qualified to play in Tuesday's Northland Secondary School Open Singles Table Tennis Championships at Kensington Stadium, featuring the region's top 28 school-aged players.
Kamo High School's Year 11 student Jamie Ball was too strong at the tournament and claimed his third consecutive title after defeating Whangarei Boy's High School's Evan Jones in the best of seven sets.
With Ball up 3-2 in sets, he trailed Jones 9-7 in the sixth set and with cautious, defensive play he allowed  Jones to make critical errors in the clutch before delivering the winning smashes to take the sixth and final set 11-9.
In the semi-finals, Ball had little difficulty against WBHS's Jared Cutforth and won the match 3-0, while Jones had more difficulty outlasting Kaitaia's Hai Xing Lin 3-1.
The plate division was won by WBHS's Campbell Fraser over fellow Boys' High student Noah Gulick, while the bowl division was won by Bay of Islands College's Chas Windust over Kamo High School's Matt Ward.