SCHOOL SPORTS - Bar set high for school sporting achievers

Teenage hockey sensation Charlotte Harrison is facing a stiff challenge from a talent laden group of sporting achievers to get the nod for an unprecedented third Northland Secondary Schools Sportsperson of the Year gong on the trot tonight.
Such is the standard of nominee received by function hosts Sport Northland, that Harrison's status as a first pick striker in the Black Sticks squad bound for the Beijing Olympics next year might not be enough to get her the major title.
Grant Harrison, the secondary schools sports co-ordinator, said there are so many national title winners and national representatives included in the list of finalists that judges were hard pressed to come up with an overall winner.
Harrison says there will be more than 60 category winners announced tonight, and all of them have either won national titles or gained national honours in their chosen sports.
"Once again this indicates the high level of athlete we have in our Northland schools.
"While it seems there is a much wider range of sports achievers, the level of their accomplishments always surprises us when we get them all written down and look at them," Harrison said.
But while keen to underline just how spectacular secondary school students have been on the sporting stage this year, he said the high calibre of nominee had forced the judging panel to take a brutal blade to the list of candidates.
"The benchmark was set very, very high so there are some significant achievements just not making the grade these days. The benchmark is rapidly becoming national team recognition."
There were also some interesting patterns emerging, especially in the all-rounder category, that was without any male nominees this year for the first time.
"Basically none of the male nominations met the standard of three national representations or better."
That is not to say we have no male all-round sportsmen up here, it just seems to be that in order to achieve to the standard required means spending a lot more time in each sport to get there.
"That cuts down time to try other sports and achieve in those sports."
While Charlotte Harrison's bid for a third consecutive supreme award will be intriguing, the battle to be named the team of the year is also looming large.
There are four Northland schools teams up for the award, and all four have won national titles this year - the lacrosse and hockey teams from Whangarei Girls' High School, the shooting team from Whangarei Boys' High School and the waka ama paddling team from Broadwood Area School.
The awards dinner, to be staged at the Genesis Energy Centre tonight, is a tickets-only event that kicks off the annual sports awards season in Northland. The Tai Tokerau Maori awards follow on November 9 and the Northland Sports Awards dinner on November 23.
There are district sports awards functions as well. The Far North awards dinner was held two weeks ago and the Kaipara awards are scheduled for November 2.