Sports awards: More silverware beckons for HBHS 1st XV

SERIOUS CONTENDERS: Dean Hulls and daughter Georgia must be considered hot favourites in their respective categories. PHOTO/FILE

IT was almost the Hastings Boys' High School 1st XV rugby team's year on the national secondary schools scene.

Seventeen consecutive wins including the Hurricanes title and the Super 8 title before a 14-13 loss to Mount Albert Grammar School in the final of the national top four knockout tournament in Palmerston North last month. The major question in the wake of this success is whether or not it will be converted into silverware at the Hawke's Bay Secondary School Sports Awards function to be held in Napier's Municipal Theatre on October 31.

The team is a finalist alongside regular finalists and national champions, Napier Girls' High School and Napier Boys' High School orienteering teams, and the national title-winning Hastings Boys' High School junior softball and Havelock North High School junior girls futsal teams. It's a quality list.

As expected head coach of the HBHS 1st XV Mark Ozich is a finalist for the coach award. If he is going to be pipped for the award it could be by a bloke who has an office a couple of doors down from his in the HBHS gym, Dean Hulls. In addition to coaching his Australian under-18 100 and 200m sprint champion daughter Georgia to a world ranking of 20 in the 200m at the under-20 world championships in Poland, Hulls guided several Kiwis to multiple national titles at the Oceania Regional Athletics Championships and the HBHS 1st XI hockey team to second place at the national India Shield tournament.

The feats of NBHS and NGHS orienteering coach Derek Morrison, who has again savoured success at international level, and Taradale High School's adventure racing, multisport and volleyball coach Pauline Edwards cannot be discounted.

Four HBHS 1st XV players, captain Kianu Kereru-Symes, vice-captain Lincoln McClutchie, Danny Toala and Liam Bauckham join Napier Boys' High School's Tim Farrell as the finalists for the male rugby player of the year award. Farrell was the only one of the five to be selected as a starter for the New Zealand Secondary Schools team which beat Australia last weekend, but this victory was outside the judging period for the awards - September 26 last year to September 23 this year.

The winner of this quality list is expected to capture the male award. Havelock North High School's Georgia Hulls has to be considered a serious contender for the female award. But if she is to be beaten it could be by Napier Girls' High School's Briana Stephenson who is also a multiple gold medallist on the international athletics scene.

Stephenson was also Hawke's Bay's sole representative in the New Zealand Secondary Schools netball team which beat their Aussie counterparts earlier in the year. Stephenson and Hulls are among 11 finalists for the female award who boast major international achievements.

Napier Girls' High School hockey players Grace Gibson and Kayla Fromont, basketballers Mahia Isherwood and Rosalia Samia, volleyballer Laina Samia and Hastings Girls' High School footballer Rose Morton, who played at under-17 World Cup level, also feature.

Along with the five rugby players HBHS cricketer Bayley Wiggins, who made the New Zealand under-19 World Cup training squad, could also go close to taking home the male award.

The winners of the male, female, team and disabled awards become automatic finalists for the supreme award which New Zealand swimming representative Bobbi Gichard won last year.

Sport Hawke's Bay's regional sports director and education team leader Junior Armstrong said 141 nominations were received across the 27 categories.

"Whilst only names of the student athletes will appear in the limelight, I'd like to acknowledge the amazing support of the community around the student athletes," Armstrong said.

Olympian Aimee Fisher will be the guest speaker at the function. The former Karamu High School student was a member of the Kiwi women's K4 500 kayaking crew which finished fifth in Rio.

Earlier this year she was crowned Hawke's Bay Sportsperson of the Year.