Bay students leave it all on the table

SPIN DOCTORS: The Bay of Islands College table tennis teams claimed several provincial secondary school titles earlier this week. See bottom of the article for names.

A long-term plan to re-establish the once popular indoor pastime was starting to reap dividends for the Bay of Islands College pupils who stood out at the Northland secondary schools table tennis championships on Tuesday.

The event took place at the Northland Table Tennis Centre in Kensington and saw 30 students taking part, representing seven schools in the region. The boys' final was an absolute cracker as Rodney College's Ben Morley earned a hard-fought 3-2 victory over BOIC's Ryan Nankivell.

In his report from the day's proceedings, BOIC's Dave Scott - who has been behind the reanimation of the sport at the Kawakawa school - noted the boys traded sets and with a fifth-set decider tied at 8 points each, it was Morely who forced his Far North opponent into critical mistakes to prevail with an 11-8 win.

In the semi-finals, Morley went on to defeat last year's finalist and top seed this year, Danyon Tana from Otamatea High School 3-1, while Nankivell knocked off his Bay College stablemate Michael Davis 3-0.

The girls' final was an all Bay College affair in which Daynah Nankivell defeated Khan Tana 3-0 in their final but the individual set scores were very close, with each set being a battle going 11-9 and 11-8.

Scott noted Daynah, Khan and Bay College No3 Jessica Owen were crowned the Northland girls' team champions for the fifth consecutive year.

"They will be hard to beat as most players are in Year 11 and will return next year with a group of younger players looking to crack one of the top three team positions," Scott said.

There was further success for Bay College in winning its first boys' team title by disposing of defending champions Otamatea 3-0 in the final, having easily handled Rodney College by the same 3-0 result in the semi-finals, while Otamatea had to work to beat Whangarei Boys' College 2-1.

"After playing table tennis for five years at Bay of Islands College, the core group in the team are graduating and will need to see the younger players step up if Bay is to defend their title next year," Scott said.

In other playoff matches, Troy Hughes from Whangaroa College was the plate champion after beating Bay College's Puke Clarke 3-0 in their final, and Tarrin Rous from Rodney College defeated Rourke Tancred-Whitham from Whangarei Boys' to win the bowl championship.

Names to accompany image: From left are Dave Scott (coach), Joshua Owen, Declan Caswell, Ryan Nankivall, Puke Clarke, Daynah Nankivall, Michael Davis, Jared King, Paehangi Hotere-Tarau, Jessica Owen, Khan Tana and Khyla Rupapera.