TIKIPUNGA High School Boys' A team were the frontrunners from Northland at the national secondary schools volleyball competition held in Palmerston North last week.
The Northland titleholders won enough of its grading matches to qualify for post section play in Division Two of the tournament and the team took plenty of
heart in that result, given the quality of the opposition.
Almost the entire team will be back for next year's nationals, Head of Sport at the school Jason Woods said, and the team plans to improve on this year's position then.
Although Tikipunga didn't feature in the action at the top of the division, they did finish 26th overall out of the 66 boys' teams - the highest place finish of a Northland team.
The competition was won by Otumoetai College who beat Tauranga BHS in the final, with St Bedes' College winning the division two title.
Kamo High School also managed to complete a satisfying third in the division three competition, finishing 33rd overall, while the Tikipunga B team started their tournament poorly and ended up 12th in division four.
Northland Girls' Champions Bay of Islands College couldn't match their efforts from last year where they brought home a Division Two bronze medal. They were out of their league against the top schools in pool play, but couldn't raise their game to beat the teams they might have and ended up qualifying for the third division, where their poor luck continued.
There were few surprises that the Northland teams couldn't match the Bay of Plenty and top Auckland colleges, who play around 80 competitive games in their lead-up competitions before the nationals.
With only about a dozen games together as a team, BOI College were disappointed about not beating some of the colleges they came up against in the lower divisions.
Whangarei Girls' High School also competed in the lower divisions, reaching the quarterfinals of Division 4 to finish fifth, while Tikipunga Girls competed in the same division to finish 10th.
McAuley College won the overall girls' title from 84 competing teams, by beating Otumoetai College in the final.
Caption: TIKIPUNGA HIGH SCHOOL BOYS A TEAM: Back row: Justin Zappelli-Wilson, Byron Luders; middle row: Hemi Cooper, Mika Nathan, Tariki Manawaiti, Harrison Tanenui-Waara; front row: Jordan Rau, Kane Rudolph, Kieron Wihongi-Henare, Jason Woods (Coach).
