The Koromatua School girls’ basketball team won gold at this year's Zespri AIMS Games and also won the Year 8 A grade in the Hamilton City Netball Centre Championship 2023.
The Koromatua School girls’ basketball team won gold at this year's Zespri AIMS Games and also won the Year 8 A grade in the Hamilton City Netball Centre Championship 2023.
Hamilton’s Koromatua School students performed well at this year’s Zespri AIMS games held in Tauranga.
The Koromatua School girls’ basketball team won gold. The team also won the Year 8 A grade in the Hamilton City Netball Centre Championship 2023.
The Koromatua School boys’ basketball team also won silver at the Zespri AIMS games.
“This is a huge accomplishment for our little kura (school). We have a total of 66 Year 7 and 8 students,” says Koromatua Prinicipal, Rosina Nin.
“At the AIMS Games, our tamariki are going up against Intermediate and Junior High Schools with a lot more ākonga (students) than us (500-2000) and then we play kura with similar numbers to us as well. Even in the Hamilton City Centre netball competition, the girls played kura which had mainly Year 8s in their teams, whereas Koromatua mainly consisted of Year 7s (five Year 7s and four Year 8s),” explains Nin.
The Koromatua School girls’ netball team won the Year 8 A grade in the Hamilton City Netball Centre Championship 2023.
Each of the basketball and netball teams put hours of training into the lead-up, also taking part in runs from Koromatua school to Temple View (which is a 3km run). They also took part in one fitness session per week; on top of playing regular games.
Basketball (reps), which comprises six players who compete in tournaments throughout the year.
Their basketball (iwi), which has eight players, has regular training with their extended whānau for iwi tournaments throughout the year.
Four of the AIMS girls played for Ngāti Toa Rangatira iwi in a Pacific Rim Basketball tournament in Hawaii.
The team came runner-up, only losing by three points. They also played in Hoop Nations in Wanganui.
NZ Māori Basketball Tournament is the main iwi basketball event of the year.
Eight girls in the AIMS team played for their iwi and gained gold and silver medals at that event.
All players did their own individual pieces of training as well.
“Our whānau train and fundraise for most of the year to get our tamariki to AIMS. Most of our tamariki come from a small community where many of their own parents and extended whānau play/coach or manage theirs and other sports teams,” says Nin.
Koromatua School girls’ basketball team named Basketball Girls National Champions for 2023 after their win at the AIMS Games.
“Basketball is a huge part of our Temple View and Koromatua community and has been for many years, especially when Church College of NZ (CCNZ) was operating. Many of these tamariki have parents, aunties, uncles and grandparents who played, coached and managed during their years at CCNZ. We have a rich heritage of basketball and sports in our community,” adds Nin.
After hearing of the teams’ successes, Nin felt “emotional, excitement, joy, pride and relief”.
“We all felt it because we all worked together for our tamariki to succeed. The tamariki themselves, the coaches and managers and the extended whānau all felt enormous pride and joy because we did it together,” says Nin.
Nin adds that she thinks of a well-known whakatauki (Māori proverb) which illustrates this collective pride and joy.
“E hara taku toa i te toa takitahi, engari kē he toa takitini.”
“One’s success is not theirs alone, it is due to the contribution and tautoko (support) of many. It takes the success of many to enable an individual’s success.”
