College sport: Budding stars chase sportsperson of year title

Lucy Brittain won her singles and doubles matches to help St Cuthbert's College to a clean sweep of titles at the Scarbro Tennis Centre. Photo / Paul Estcourt

Many of Auckland's young sporting stars have made their mark internationally this year. They are about to go under the microscope again as the judges select the ASB College Sport Young Sportsperson of the Year.

This year's winners - and the field is wide open - will join some of New Zealand's greatest sporting stars who have been recognised at the awards which were first made in 1991 when cricketer Kyle Brown and Beatrice Faumuina, who went on to win a world discus championship, took the overall honours.

Other past winners include Jonah Lomu, Sarah Ulmer, Emily Drumm, Sheryl Scanlan (nee Clarke), Scott Talbot-Cameron, Daniel Slater, Sarah Macky, Valerie Vili, Nathan Richmond, Ryan Archibald, Corney Swanepol, Phyllis Meti, Simon Child and Terenzo Bozzone.

In the 19 years of the awards, many of the rugby category winners have gone on to become All Blacks or sevens stars including Jeremy Stanley, Charles Riechelmann, Pita Alatini, Doug Howlett, Orene Ai'i, Sam Tuitupou and Luke McAlister.

Silver Ferns Scanlan, Maria Tutaia and Paula Griffin have all won netball category awards. Stacey Jones was a league category winner.

Last year's winners were swimmer Daniel Bell (Massey HS) and Anna Green (EGGS). Annalie Longo (EGGS), who won the overall award in 2007, is again among the finalists in the football category this year.

The awards will be presented at the ASB-hosted dinner at Eden Park on November 12.

CRICKET

Auckland: WBHS, MAGS and AGS appear to hold the upper hand after day one of their Division 1A two-day championship matches although WBHS will need a big first session on Saturday morning if they are to contain St Kentigern.

Batting first, WBHS battled to reach 178 thanks mainly to an unbeaten 73 from Travis Committie. His only real support came from Craig Cachopa (44) as Trent Cooper picked up 3-20.

In reply St Kentigern were 58/3.

Steady rather than spectacular batting got MAGS through to 217 in their first innings against Rangitoto. Only Troy Wood (33) got beyond 30 while Mark Norman spearheaded the Rangitoto attack with 4-40. In losing four wickets for 90, Rangitoto will need to consolidate when the match resumes.

AGS are in control of the match of the round. After dismissing Kings for just 113, AGS quickly raced to 132/3 to bag first innings points. Lachie Fergusson was the best of a well-balanced AGS attack claiming 3-17. He then followed that with an unbeaten 40 to complete a handy double after Jonno Stuchberry had scored a useful 64.

Led by the batting deeds of rugby star Gareth Anscombe, Rosmini took control of their 1A plate match against KBHS.

Anscombe top-scored with 77 as Rosmini posted an impressive 243. Connor Ridge chipped in with 59 to aid the Rosmini cause. Despite these strong batting efforts, Ravi Ram still managed to pick up 3-39 as the best of the Kelston bowlers.

Any hope of getting close in their run chase quickly evaporated as KBHS ended the day's play at 8/3.

Sacred Heart are also on course for victory against Macleans.

Led by Freddy Klaasen's 5-28, Sacred Heart dismissed Macleans for 155. At stumps Sacred Heart, with Henry Blackwell unbeaten on 52, were well-placed at 102/2 in reply.

St Peter's College completed a good day for the Catholic schools.

After winning the toss, St Peters sent Avondale in to bat. With Josh Presland quickly on the mark - he bagged 4-16 in ripping the innings apart - Avondale struggled and managed just 61.

St Peters, led by unbeaten half centuries from Matt Considine and Michael Bing, raced to 182/2 before declaring and sending Avondale into bat for a second time.

Presland was again in top form, claiming 5-18 as Avondale struggled for survival. At stumps they were 59-9 - still 62 runs from forcing St Peters to bat again.

Waikato: St Peter's School made it two-from-two in the Division 1A 1st XI competition with a five-wicket win over Cambridge High in the derby match played in the idyllic setting at St Peters.

Even without injured regular new-ball bowler Ross Fitz-John, St Peters quickly made inroads into the Cambridge top order after they had elected to bat first on the immaculate grass pitch.

Garth Christie spearheaded the attack and quickly bagged three wickets. The visitors offered some resistance in the middle order as Nik Boyle scored 40 and Ross Laidlaw 30 but the 141 they posted was never going to be enough.

Led by a Kurt James half-century, St Peters cruised home by five wickets to successfully defend the Dave Hoskin Trophy.

Matamata College won the toss and batted first at home against Hillcrest High who were looking to make up for their one-run loss to St Pauls in the opening round.

Daniel van Heuven and Mitchell Green both scored 63 and Brad McKenzie 48 to lay the foundation for Matamata's solid 244/8 in their 50 overs after van Heuven and Ben Hollier (21) had put on 80 for the first wicket.

The visitors struck back to claim three quick wickets but any chance of a complete breakthrough was undone by a handful of dropped catches.

In reply, Hillcrest began positively with Brendon Flegg smacking a quick-fire 37. He was well-supported by Josh Fawcett (29) but once that partnership was broken and with the numbers three and four in the Hillcrest line-up failing to score, the home side were back on top.

In the end Green completed a good double with 3-38 while quick Nigel Hatfield bagged 3-40 to steer Matamata to a 34-run victory.

The Hamilton BHS Development XI chose to bat first against St Pauls but were quickly ruing their decision.

While Owen Robinson and Thomas Te Whare led the charge for St Pauls with three wickets each, Scott Joblin was their most effective bowler taking 2-4 from his 10 overs as HBHS struggled to reach 111.

In reply St Pauls were never under pressure as they reached 112 for three to win by seven wickets.

Like St Peters, St Pauls have won their first two matches in the term four competition.

TENNIS

Turning up at school at 7am is not many girls' idea of fun but for the tennis players at St Cuthbert's College it has been part of the deal which on Saturday returned a handsome dividend. In surely an unprecedented clean sweep, the school won the senior, intermediate and junior A1 titles on finals day at the Scarbro Tennis Centre.

Making good use of their seven new courts, the 100 or so St Cuthbert's players train enthusiastically with their five coaches. The school entered three senior, three intermediate and four junior teams in various competitions this year.

Coach Sam Louden was brought in as part of the programme this year and has coached the junior and senior A and the senior B teams. Pepe McDermott, at the school for six years, coached the intermediate A team. There is also vital input from head coach Kevin Wright.

The seniors beat Rangitoto 7-2 with Claudia Williams (at No 2), Emily Fry (3), Rebecca Wood (4), Ella Barclay (5) and Lucy Brittain (6) winning their singles. Fry and Wood and Barclay and Brittain also won in doubles.

This win followed their first term success when they won the James Aitkinhead Shield Champion of Champions for the 11th consecutive year.

The 5-4 win over Rangitoto by the intermediate team of Gabriella Crozier, Isobella Hotchin, Anouska Ameratunga, Lydia Shieff, Lucy Campion, Ruby-Jean Clark, Sam Davidson and Rachel Wilson was a first for the school.

The junior final was cut short with the courts required for local inter-club play but by that time the St Cuthbert's team of Lucy Macdonald, Kate Stevens, Sanjna Gangakhedkar, Ariella Bok, Abigail Stuart, Tasha Reid and Gemma Scarborough were already 7-0 ahead of St Kentigern and retained the title they won last year.

In the senior boy's final, MAGS won an unprecedented eighth Auckland Championship with a hard-fought 5-4 win over WBHS.

After narrowly losing the final a year ago, the team of Jamie Eccleton, Temuera Asafu-Adjaye, Ryan Leakey, Billy Strachan, David Clifford and Michael Koenen bounced back to claim the title - 35 years after the school's last success.

WAKA AMA

The best junior paddlers will descend on Orakei Basin on Saturday for the 12th Auckland SS regatta.

A total of 45 teams from 13 schools have entered the popular event. De La Salle, James Cook and EGGS will be the teams to beat.

Teams from Aorere, AGGS, Avondale, De La Salle, EGGS, James Cook, Kaipara, KBHS, Onehunga, Otahuhu, Sir Edmund Hillary/Otara Senior School, TKKM O Mangere and Wesley have entered.

* www.asbcollegesport.co.nz