KEY POINTS:
The amazing effort by Westlake BHS teams in winning all four titles on finals day at the greater Auckland basketball championships was cold comfort for schools hoping for a share of the spoils next year.
Of the 13 players in the WBHS premier squad only Zac Fitzgerald and Dion Noon are seventh formers and their likely replacements will almost certainly come from one of the school's other championship-winning teams.
It was little surprise the North Harbour school was so dominant in taking the unprecedented clean sweep at the nearby North Shore Events Centre.
The stadium is home to the New Zealand Breakers who have WBHS old boys Kirk Penney, Thomas Abercrombie and Corey Webster on their roster. Three other former pupils, Ryan Beesley, David Clarke and Rory Fannon are in the US college system.
The school has plenty of prospective premier players, with 230 boys playing basketball in their 31 teams as part of their Sports Institute programme which started in 2000.
In what turned out to be a one-sided affair, WBHS overpowered a gritty Dilworth 80-60 in the premier final with Junior Tall Black and the game's MVP Robert Loe scoring 34 points and pulling down 18 rebounds.
Dilworth stunned the hot favourites early though by leading 20-17 at the end of the first quarter. Westlake were in front 33-28 at halftime and closed out the final with a 29-15 scoring spree in the last quarter.
The players in the WBHS premier squad, who now head to the national finals in Palmerston North in the first week of the school holidays, are Zac Fitzgerald (captain) Robert Loe (vice-captain), Dion Noon, Luka Kablar, Liam Munday, Luke Cruickshank, Stanley Heather, Sonny Tuaputa, Jonathan Legge, Scott Campbell, Mitchell Richmond, Sharrif Hassan and Anthony Jones.
The under-15 final was closer, with WBHS just getting up 48-47 over AGS, but it was a little easier in the under-17 final, with WBHS edging KBHS 53-40. In a minor upset, WBHS beat Onehunga 52-39 in the Open final.
Rangitoto College overpowered a plucky Massey High School 80-61 in the premier girls' final with 14-year-old MVP winner Brooke Blair in commanding form for the winners. She was well-supported by her older sisters Shinae and Mikayla Blair.
Cycling
The record book took a hammering in the last of the seven rounds of the Auckland SS time trial championships.
After a winter of racing disrupted by some shocking weather and with one race punctuated by the indiscriminate spreading of tacks on the road, the weather on the waterfront on Sunday was perfect and led to records in three of the four divisions.
Having lost their junior boys' record to WBHS in the rescheduled race three a week earlier, the AGS A team turned in a stunning performance. Their winning 21m 31.9s slashed almost half a minute from the record.
Not to be outdone, the AGS senior boys took an amazing 36s from the record set by St Kentigern four years ago.
Another four-year-old record was broken when the senior Diocesan A team of Katie Kenny, Sarah Gilkison, Grace Mitchell, Kate McDonald and Amelia Watkinson recorded 23m 18.1s to clip 12secs from the record their school set in 2004.
Diocesan had a day to remember.
Their B team finished third behind Macleans in the senior race and their juniors dominated with a one-two finish but with their A team of Amelia Meadowcroft, Georgina Wilson, Macaulay Wilkinson and Kate McCormack failing to join the record-breakers. Attention now turns to this week's NZ SS championships to be raced in Levin, Feilding and on the Manfeild auto racing circuit.
Swimming
Olympians Daniel Bell and Orinoco Faamausili-Banse-Prince stole the limelight at the Auckland SS individual short course (25m pool) championships.
They shared the honours in two 50m races at the West Wave Aquatic Centre, with Bell (Massey HS) claiming the butterfly title in 23.61s while in his favoured freestyle, Faamausili-Banse-Prince (Mt Albert Grammar) turned the tables, winning in 22.43s.
Bell, a member of the well-formed 4x100m medley relay team in Beijing, comfortably won the 50m-100m double in his specialist backstroke events.
Faamausili-Banse-Prince also completed the freestyle double and wound up a busy day with victory in the 100m individual medley.
* www.asbcollegesport.co.nz
