IN-LINE HOCKEY Stingray four make NZ teams

FOUR of the Kerikeri Stingray under-16 team could have trouble keeping their eye on the puck when their inline hockey gets under way soon.
Levi Munro, Grace Niblock, Ashley Peters and Luke Bowring have been chosen for New Zealand teams for the upcoming Oceania Championships in Palmerston North in April and the demands of preparation for the big tournament has left them little time to concentrate on anything else.
The Kiwi teams have already undergone two training camps, one in Auckland, the other in Palmerston North, and they have another training camp, again in Palmerston North, in a week.
The intense training for this year's tournament was probably a reaction to last year's poor performance by Kiwi teams at the Oceania event.
New Zealand usually dominates their transtasman rivals in inline hockey but last year at the Oceania Championships in Queensland they were badly beaten.
Only two teams won their matches last year and Niblock's junior women, or under-16 team, was one of them.
For Niblock, who has done it all before, the demands of selection in a national team has come a bit easier but for her three Stingray teammates, it will be a new experience.
The Stingray team are the current national U16 title-holders in inline hockey, and reflects why the team from such a small club are represented so strongly at the national level.
The team won the national title in Tauranga late last year, beating the Renegades from Upper Hutt, who were the favourites, and also silenced the second favourites, New Plymouth Ravens.
The team had a short break in training over the Christmas and New Year period.
But since then they have already attended a tournament in Waikato this year.