School Sport: Malia and Alisha make nationals

Malia Josephson has made New Zealand Schoolgirls water polo team.

Water polo
Congratulations to Malia Josephson and Alisha Winstanly in making the New Zealand Schoolgirls water polo team to play Australian Schoolgirls from December 18-20. Hard work finally paid off for this pair.

The MMC junior boys are having a great start to the season and had another win last week, against Tauranga Boys'.

They are in good stead for the North Island competition later in the month. The junior girls have had a hard start to the local comp, leading up to the North Islands.

They won their first game convincingly then had two hard games v Mount boys and Papamoa.

A poor start on Thursday cost them, as they played down the road rivals Papamoa. A great second half comeback saw them win the third quarter 3-0 but they were not quite able to finish off in the last quarter, losing 9-7.

Next week it does not get any easier as they play Tauranga Boys' Under-14 but it is all great build-up for the North Islands.

Touch
Mount Maunganui College is running a new touch module for Western Bay of Plenty secondary schools every Friday after school at Tauranga Domain.

It kicked off last Friday to strong winds and excited players. MMC has two teams in this competition - MMC Red, a Year 10 side coached this season by Khan Butler, and MMC Black, our Year 9s coached by new deputy principal Alastair Sinton. MMC Red played BC Swifts in the first round on field 1.

MMC started the game with only five players and managed to hold off a very quick BC Swifts side. The wind played a minor factor as the MMC boys fought hard to hold off the BC Swifts till subs arrived.

At halftime, MMC Red took on some words of wisdom from their coach Khan Butler and, with six players on field, turned up the heat, with MMC Red winning over BC Swifts 11-0.

Other games saw MMC Black play their first round against BC Eagles. Again, it was another game that saw the Mount boys hit their stride in the second half, to beat the BC Eagles in a tight battle by 10-6.