Karate and rugby feature in top secondary school awards

Bream Bay College's Nicola Roberts and Whangarei Boys High School's Jake Heenan were recognised for their achievements, winning the premier prizes at the 19th annual ASB Northland Secondary Schools Sports Awards.
Around 500 guests were at Kensington Stadium last night to acknowledge the region's young athletes for their achievements in the sporting world over the past 12 months.
Special credit was given to Roberts and Heenan however, whose recent performances in karate and rugby respectively could not be overlooked.
Roberts was named the 2010 ASB Sportswoman of the Year after becoming the national junior women's and under-19 kata champion. The Bream Bay College student represented New Zealand in kata at under-21 and senior women's level and won a gold medal at the Oceania Champs in Tahiti.
Heenan was named the Sportsman of the Year for his outstanding efforts in rugby - the loose forward was captain of WBHS First XV and was named in the Blues Secondary Schools team. After a solid tournament with the Blues, he was quickly snapped up by Auckland on a youth contract for next year. He was also picked for the NZ Secondary Schools rugby side who played and beat Tonga Schools, Otago Schools and their test match against Australian Secondary school earlier this month.
Sport Northland awards organiser Grant Harrison said the standard of the 80 sport category winners - as well as the 300 nominees was very high.
"There was representation by various secondary school athletes in four world championships, two at Oceania championships, one at the Youth Olympics and there were six national titles and 12 national team representatives including two at open level," he said.
Black Sticks Anna Thorpe, fresh back from the New Delhi Commonwealth Games with a silver medal, was a guest at the awards ceremony, and did a question/answer session with local radio personality Graeme Severinson about her career highlights and lowlights.
Further evidence that Northland is a breeding ground for successful athletes was seen in the various code and specific awards presented last night.
The Asics all rounder awards for excellence in at least three sports went to Sian Telfer from Whangarei Girls' High School and Henry Cooper from WBHS.
The Northland Health Sponsored Area School sportsman and woman awards went to Cherith Schraag of Mangakahia Area School and Kahi Harawira from Te Kura Kaupapa Maori O Te Rangianiwaniwa. Meanwhile, the Pasgaard Sports Distributors award for team excellence was won by the Kerikeri High School sailing team which was the NZSS sailing champion and winners of the Inter-dominion finals against top NZ and Australian school teams.
For a full list of winners go to www.sportnorthland.co.nz.