Stevens aiming to go out on a high

REPRESENTING NEW ZEALAND: Gisborne’s Raven Stevens (second left) with (from left) New Zealand under-20 women’s ultimate team assistant coach Sally Neal, Hannah Taylor, Megan Edwards and head coach Iain Stewart. Picture supplied

Gisborne Girls’ High School student Raven Stevens will bring the curtain down on her New Zealand frisbee career when she competes at the World Junior Ultimate Championships at Waterloo, near Toronto, this month.

“We leave Auckland on August 11 and this will be my last time competing as an international,” said the 18-year-old, who has been accepted into the Auckland University of Technology (AUT) to study sports and recreation.

“It’s a three-year course and I need to focus on getting my degree, which I hope will lead to a career in teaching.”

Stevens, along with another Gisborne girl, Renee Holmes, were members of the New Zealand under-20 Kahu team who came sixth at the last world junior champs in Poland in 2016.

Holmes, who was named third-best player in the women’s section, was not available this year.

“We’ll miss Renee — she’s a good player — but a lot of the girls who went to Poland are going to Canada,” said Stevens, who has battled back from two knee injuries to earn her place in the 20-strong squad.

“I tore the anterior cruciate ligament (ACL) in my right knee at the national trials but managed to be picked and recovered in time to go to Poland (in 2016).

“This time I’ve suffered a slight tear to the cartilage in my left knee playing ki o rahi, just trying to keep fit for Canada.

“But we’ve had some training camps in Wellington and Auckland in the past two months and there’s been a huge improvement.

“It’s still a little sore but nothing that won’t come right before we leave for Canada.”

The Kahu team will fly to Vancouver, where they will spend one week training and getting used to the heat and turf pitches, before travelling to Toronto, trying to improve on their world ranking of sixth. Competition starts on August 19.

“The aim is to do better than sixth, but without knowing the players in the other countries it’s hard to say how we’ll go.”

The 2016 champs attracted 49 men’s and women’s teams from 29 countries — 988 athletes in total.

This year Great Britain have entered.

“Canada beat America in Poland and they will be favourites on their home pitches.

“It’s the first team to score 15 points who wins but there is a time limit if neither team has scored 15 points. That’s usually 90 minutes, then it comes down to an ultimate score, which is the next team to score.

“The teams are split into two pools with two games each day before playoffs to decide the overall rankings.”

With the sport not having a high profile, Stevens has to fundraise, and supplements this with work at the Makaraka Dairy.

“It’s all worth the time and effort. I enjoy travelling to different countries, and after this I will be concentrating on my studies.”