A109 Light Utility Helicopter flight with mayor Gisborne City from the air in November 2023.
THEY were semi-finals to remember.
The Gisborne Basketball Association women's club final next Monday will feature three-time defending champions Ngati Porou and Turanga.
Ngati Porou standouts Bronya McMenamin and Ata Mangu were held to 12 points each in the gold standard's 50-45 victory over Manu Toa. Crucially, the reigning champions' Jayda Waititi-Leach also contributed nine points: in the context of the game, Waititi-Leach played a match-tipping hand as 1 beat 2 in the first semi-final.
Turanga under Ngarita Ehau-Taumanu beat Ritana Toa 53-50 in overtime as 2 accounted for 3 in the second semi-final.
The Masters opened Monday night's proceedings at the YMCA with a hard-fought 40-32 win against Gisborne Girls' High School.
All three of the young teams that lost on Monday showed rare courage — and no player in the women's league is more widely known for that than Masters' stalwart Janelle Te Rauna-Lamont.
“That was a good performance by us, though at the start of the game, they shot the ball better than we did,” said Te Rauna-Lamont of her outfit's latest encounter with GGHS.
“We started slowly, but pressure can make life hard for young players, so pressure was a friend to us.”
The next generation showed few nerves early on; tiny guard Riley Lewis (five pts) hit the first three-point shot of the game for a 6-3 lead to GGHS in the third minute. Masters imposing left-hander Dyani Johnson scored her first field goal at the rim in response: Johnson's classic 24-point performance was a testament to willpower, grit and heart.
Arie Aston (six pts) ramped up her rebounding stocks in support of Johnson in the second period, and in the third quarter on a backdoor play, latched on to a great assist from Reremoana Bartlett-Tamatea to tie the scores at 20-20.
Natasha Porter (seven pts) of Girls' High made the individual play of the fourth period: a 25-foot jumpshot for GGHS 32, The Masters 35.
Ngati Porou captain Bronya McMenamin is a good judge of character.
“Amokura Te Rauna-Lamont (11) was a stand-out for Manu Toa against us. She kept her composure and sank a lot of important shots for them. That was a competitive 1v4 semi-final.”
Her team led 13-10, then trailed 22-23, before going into the fourth quarter four points up (score 35-31).
“Ngamako Toroa (nine pts) was outstanding for us and we weren't as rusty as I thought we would be, after three weeks off.”
Jamieson Tapsell (13) of Manu Toa was in good shooting form from the outset, hitting a jumpshot three metres from the basket to cut the champions' advantage to four points (score then, 10-6, Ngati Porou). Before half-time, things livened up still further. Amokura Te Rauna-Lamont hit a three-pointer, or “trey”, from the left corner for 23-20 to Manu Toa, and on the next play, Toroa made a horrendously difficult left-hand lay-up off-balance before being ridden out of court by Toa's player-coach Melissa Mackey-Huriwai. It was the comic play of the night.
With 35 seconds left to play until three-quartertime, Ngati Porou led 35-32. Their half-court defence was so tight that the gutsy Manu Toa couldn't get a shot off.
Ata Mangu made an incredible lay-up for 45-38 towards the end of Game 2 in Week 14, but no shot this year is the equal of Amoe Wharehinga's score for 48-46 with 7.83 seconds in regulation time of Ritana Toa v Turanga, the 2v3 semi-final.
O'Shae Rangihaeata, who scored 10 points on Monday and has been superb all season, gave the assist.
Rangihaeata raced down the right sideline and flung a cross-court pass towards the key at Turanga's end of the floor. Wharehinga, on the run down the middle of the YMCA, cut across the key left to right, gathered the ball and at full speed leaned back to make the reverse lay-up.
Wharehinga was going past the hoop when she got the ball and scored.
Ritana Toa, the Lytton High School girls, were beaten 53-50 by a Turanga team which rallied without panic under Ngarita Ehau-Taumanu (10). Her calmness, shooting ability and the boost that she and Kiara Swannell (25) gave Turanga at the offensive end of the court, had a major bearing on the outcome.