Over the weekend the NZ Secondary Schools Cross Country was held in Rotorua at the Agrodome.
This year we had seven students travel to compete in the event last Saturday. Olivia Cummings and Antonia Ballantyne competed in the Year 9 girls' race which had 94 athletes running.
Olivia finished with an outstanding third place and Antonia finished 21st.
Grace Blissett and Kerry Frost ran in the junior girls', Kerry finishing 67th and Grace 89th out of 107 athletes. In the junior boys' Jade Stafford ran incredibly well in an extremely fast and competitive race, he finished 39th out of 170 athletes.
Liam Miller and Blake Miller also ran well finishing 178th and 188th out of 217 athletes. We are extremely proud of all these students for their outstanding achievements in cross country this year.
Year 9 girls Olivia Cummings and Antonia Ballantyne competed in the first ever NZSS Cross Country Relay event.
The girls were selected into the Waikato/BOP regional team after the Waikato Cross Country two weeks ago.
The relay consists of five runners who each one run a 2km loop of the track.
The Waikato/BOP Year 9 team finished second, taking home a silver medal.
Underwater hockey
The Otumoetai Junior girls' team returned from a successful Northern Zone Secondary Schools championship in Auckland last week in their bid to finish top four to make the national tournament.
Playing against some extremely tough, talented opposition we are extremely proud of the girls to finish fourth overall.
The girls now have to prepare for the national tournament in Wellington in September.
Adriana Lipinski was captain of the team and was named MVP after an outstanding tournament.
Hockey
Last week's semifinal game against Aquinas was always going to be a tough one, given the 4-all draw when the teams had met during pool play.
Again both teams played well but Otumoetai definitely had the edge in the first half and led 3-0 at halftime.
However, Otumoetai starting the second half very flat, allowing an early goal to Aquinas.
Despite Aquinas scoring again with seven minutes to go, Otumoetai held on for the win.
Tauranga Boys' College
St Paul's Collegiate exchange
In our traditional home and away fixture, TBC senior teams stood proud with four great wins. The football 1st X1 played a NZSS qualifying round and defeated St Paul's 10-0, Basketball Senior A won 114-24, Hockey 1st X1 won 3-1, Rugby 2nd XV won 40-7 and the squash team lost 4-2. In the away fixture Rugby U15 lost 30-10, Rugby U14 lost 27-14, Basketball Junior A won 80-20, Junior Hockey drew 1-all.
Football
2nd XI vs Taupo-nui-a-Tia 1st XI (won 2-1). We took a long trip to Taupo on Saturday and knew that although they were bottom of the table it would be a tough game.
We dominated most of the possession and had plenty of chances but couldn't score. At halftime it was still 0-0 and our coaches gave us a real rev up.
Then with about 15 minutes to play they scored on the break. This made us step up and Stan Rust finished off a good move with a great header. Soon after that Kody Gorst slammed home the winner for us. Ethan Perkins (Year 11)
3rd XI vs Te Puke High 1st XI (drew 2-all ). On Saturday TBC 3rd XI played TPHS 1st XI at Waipuna Park.
Possession was fairly even and TBC had most of the chances. Instead of playing the way we usually play and keeping the ball on the ground, we were a little bit sloppy. Ten minutes before halftime there was miscommunication between the defenders and our keeper, which led to Te Puke scoring.
Matt Hampton whipped in a great ball from a corner and after a scramble, Oakley Dench scored the equaliser. Fifteen minutes after our goal, the ball was crossed in and a Te Puke defender put the ball into the back of his own net. Then controversy.
Te Puke thought they had scored but the referee disallowed it, saying the ball had not crossed the line after a great save from Matt Manners.
Te Puke made it 2-all with a big deflection. Keegan Flowerday (Year 11)
Underwater Hockey
TBC won gold in the Junior North Island Secondary Schools Tournament.
Bethlehem College
Badminton
Three teams qualified for the finals in the BOP Senior Badminton competition. The Senior A Girls Division 1 of Caitlin Murray, Carmen Lim, Ruby Kim and Nury Lee came first, Senior Boys A Division 1 of Mackenzie Lines, Cameron Murray, Bernard Reyneke and Jordan Joe came second and the Senior Boys A Division 2 of Daniel Price, Michael Hardy, Lucas Law and Daniel Bai won.
BC Boys 1st XI took on Mount 1st Boys in a friendly last week. Having already secured top qualifying position, the boys dominated the game and ended 5-0 with goals to Bruce Zeng (2), Ethan Bos, Simon Fraser-Mackenzie and Matt Davis.
BC Girls 1st XI were dominant against the Otumoetai 2nd XI on Wednesday night scoring seven goals in the first half and 10 in the second. They are undefeated in the first round of local competition.
Football
BC 1st XI Girls had an energetic game against Otumoetai 1st XI. Superb control in the box by goalie Rosalind Shennan resulted in seven saves but Otumoetai won 4-0.
Rugby
Two away games this week saw our 1st XV boys travel to play Rotorua Boys High 2nd XV.
This was to decide 3rd and 4th place in the 1st round of division one. BC played the first half with intensity and defended well, successfully diffusing a number of attacks.
Right wing, Luke McDowell crossed the try line for BC to led 5-0 at halftime. The second half saw the bigger Rotorua pack gain dominance and some missed tackles saw them cross the line for a final score of 20-5.
Saturday saw our 1st XV boys play Whakatane at home. Playing in good conditions, BC dominated territory early and prop Nico Aandewiel scored two tries.
The forwards dominated possession, resulting in further tries to fellow prop Lachlan McBride and flankers Greg Lees and Matt Leppard. Half time saw a score of 29-0 to BC.
The game lost some shape in the second half due to injuries and substitutions making traditional scrums necessary.
BC managed to score twice more with tries to first-five Xavier Albert and 2nd five Caleb Hood.
Number 8 Troy Absalom returned from injury to deliver a strong all round performance. BC showed pride defending their line for a convincing 41-0 victory.
Te Puke High School
Rugby
This week our 1st XV took on John Paul College and narrowly lost 19-12 in what was a tight game. The Te Puke backline struggled to get any attack going and that ultimately cost the boys the win.
Their defensive effort however was one of their best all year, but there's a feeling they are yet to play a full 70 minute game and when they do they will be a hard team to compete against.
TPHS 2nd XV suffered a heavy loss to Rotorua Boys' 4th XV. Both the under-15 and under-14 boys struggled with their opposition and lost.
The boys' 1st XI dominated Tauranga Boys 2nd's in an excellent display of skill and composure, even though they were in charge from the start they didn't lose their attacking shape and pushed out to a 5-0 win.
While the girls were equally impressive and won what was a very even and hard fought game against neighbours Papamoa College 1-0.
The girls' 2nd XI easily dispatched Katikati College 8-0 but the boys' 2nd XI unfortunately had a loss.
Mount Maunganui College
Basketball
Mount Maunganui College have never had so many exciting finishes in one night of basketball as we did last week.
First up, Mount College Junior A girls' team drew 51-51 with Tauranga Girls' White team.
The lead changed several times throughout the game. Coach Anna Mountford used all her experience to ensure a victory, but in the end an exciting draw was the final result.
Our Junior Girls 2 team came back from a 15 point deficit against Bethlehem College Junior Girls' A team to be within one point, but lost 35-36.
The Junior Boys' 2 team suffered the same result, also losing by one point, 41-42 to Bethlehem College Junior Boys' B when the last shot in the final second spun out of the opposition hoop.
A pleasing result was the win of our Senior A Girls' team. They convincingly defeated Waihi Senior A Girls' 58-26, a team we had lost to at the start of the season.
Papamoa Primary School
Squash
Our squash team competed at the BOP Primary School Champs in Rotorua on Thursday, June 16. Our five boys placed second, third, fourth, fifth and sixth. Special mention to Jonty Collier who came second.
A huge thanks to Don McNeilly for his help to prepare the boys for their big day and Ocean Blue Gym for allowing us the use of their squash court for training sessions Rippa rugby.
Congratulations to our teams that competed in last week's BOP Champs at Paengaroa.
Our Year 3/4 team qualified for the Top 4 before being knocked out by Omanu School, and our Year 5/6 team made it all the way to the final before being beaten by a strong Kawerau School team.
Well done to all athletes involved and Mr Tahana, and a big thanks to all the parents that helped out today with transport.
Mount Cluster Cross Country
We took a strong team of 30 athletes to Blake Park on June 9. There were some outstanding individual performances and we returned with two qualifiers for the WBOP Champs and the third place school trophy.
Talitha McEwan came seventh in the Year 6 girls' event and Chloe Cheyne passed numerous runners in the last 300m of the Year 5 girls' event to finish a very respectable third.
Special mentions also to Jade Toi who finished eighth in the Year 4 girls' and Zach Heke who also placed eighth in the Year 5 boys' race.
Full credit to Jonty Collier and Kerry O'Reilly, Year 6, who represented the school in all three events.
They both ran at the Mount Cluster Cross Country, got second place medals at the BOP Ripper Rugby Champs, and then played at the BOP Squash champs in Rotorua.
Tauranga Girls' College
Cross Country
At the weekend a huge gathering of 1000 cross country runners competed in the New Zealand Secondary Schools Cross Country championships in Rotorua.
Our girls achieved great results with our senior team of Arleah Tippins, Kaylee Mudgway, Tylah Amrein, Paris Heslop, Jaysha Tippins and Sophie McConnell winning a silver medal in the six-person team event.
On Sunday was the inaugural National Cross Country Regional Relay Champs. Athletes were selected for the Waikato/BOP team based on their placings at Waikato champs.
Kaylee Mudgway and Arleah Tippins were in the Waikato/BOP senior girls' team that came fourth. Well done to our other athletes who competed: Hannah Rose, Ellie Richardson, Tabitha Marshall, Crystal Aranui, Abbie Mortimer, Kalais Going, Breana Allum, Erin Conway, and Emily Kneale. Great effort girls.
Netball
On Friday we had wins from the League 1, Junior A, Senior A and Junior Development teams. In the junior division, TGC Year 9 A and B teams won as well as all of the Year 10 teams. Keep up the good work girls.
Hard work during training helped the 2nd and 3rd XIs win games against 1st XI teams.
Underwater Hockey
We have had our junior team compete in regionals on the 17th-19th. With a great result of fifth and great games played, we look forward to seeing how they do for the rest of the season.
Most Valuable Player of the senior competition was Jordan Ross and for the junior competition Keelin McKelvie.