Mount Maunganui College head girl Molly Shivnan collected an impressive haul of medals at the New Zealand Surf Life Saving Nationals. Photo / Supplied
Mount Maunganui College head girl Molly Shivnan collected an impressive haul of medals at the New Zealand Surf Life Saving Nationals. Photo / Supplied
Surf Life Saving
This year started well for Mount Maunganui College student Molly Shivnan. As well as being named head girl, she also collected an impressive haul of medals at the New Zealand Surf Life Saving Nationals at Midway Beach, Gisborne in March.
She won the under-19 run-swim-run, boardrescue, tube rescue, board relay, taplin relay, open board relay and was second in the open taplin relay.
On the back of her success at nationals, Molly was selected in the New Zealand Youth Surf Life Saving squad to compete in Italy in September 2020 at the World Champs.
Molly was selected in the 14-strong squad alongside Year 11 student and beach sprinter, Sophie Lynskey. Sophie won the national under-16 beach sprint and was third in the open women's beach sprint at nationals.
Unfortunately, the World Surf Lifesaving event became another victim of Covid-19 and has been cancelled.
Aside from in the ocean, Molly also impresses in the pool, gaining three titles, two silver medals and a bronze at the 2019 Pool Surf Life Saving Champs, and eight titles at the Central North Island Champs held in October 2019.
Melika Samia and Vitolia Tuilave are doing big things in basketball.
The girls are key players in the Mount Maunganui College Senior A Girls team and were selected in the New Zealand Under-17 team to travel to Canberra earlier this year for the Asian Qualifying tournament.
The winner of that tournament would qualify for the World Championships. Unfortunately the tour could not go ahead and the girls missed out on the chance to pull on the black singlet.
As well as making the under-17 team, Melika was the youngest player selected for the New Zealand Under-19 team known as the Junior Tall Ferns. She was due to compete at a tournament in China but once again, Covid-19 interfered with those plans.
Melika has since been named in the New Zealand Under-18 team and holds out hopes of travelling to Thailand in October for the U18 FIBA Asian Championships.
Melika Samia dribbles past an opponent. Photo / Supplied
Volleyball
Unfortunately for a group of talented Mount Maunganui College volleyballers, their hard work and sacrifice which saw them selected in national teams, won't come to fruition due to the impacts of Covid-19.
Year 12 students Maia Horlock, Tasia Clarke and Riley Bartosh were selected to play for the Aotearoa Māori Girls Under-18 Volleyball team to travel to the US High Performance Championships in Pittsburgh.
Deputy Principal Brendon-Ray Horlock coaches the College's senior girls team and was also selected to coach the representative team in its inaugural year.
Maia was also selected as the youngest player in the New Zealand Junior Women's volleyball team for the second consecutive year.
Maia was set to travel to Chongqing, China, for the Asian Championships next month in the hope of qualifying for the World Championships.
Volleyball New Zealand hopes the team will get the opportunity to earn their place at the World Champions through an alternative competition.
Year 12 student Matt Larsen has also achieved great success in Volleyball circles, being selected for the New Zealand Youth team as well as the New Zealand Youth Men's Beach Volleyball Squad for the Youth Commonwealth Games.
Like his fellow students, Matt has missed out on the opportunity to travel for these teams due to no fault of his own, but remains focused on training to best prepare for future opportunities.
Not everyone is in their comfort zone in raging whitewater but for Year 12 students Kahlia Cullwick and Holly Sheaff, it's their happy place.
The girls both earned a place in the New Zealand Under-18 Development Squad to compete at the Canoe Slalom Junior World Championships in Slovenia. The event is still currently up in the air due to the impacts of Coronavirus.
Kahlia was also selected in the National Performance squad, an outstanding feat for the 16-year-old.
