Northland sports in brief

Premier hockey

Springfield launched a late comeback to draw 3-all with Maungakaramea in their premier men's hockey match on Friday night. Neither team really took control of the game which was full of turnovers, but Maungakaramea made the most of their limited opportunities early to take a 3-1 lead into the fourth quarter. Springfield then turned the momentum and scored two classy fourth-quarter goals to level the scores while Maungakaramea squandered a couple of easy opportunities to close out the game. Mangapai showed their class in the other premier men's match on Saturday with a five-goal romp over Bream Bay. Whangarei Boys' High School had the bye. In the premier women's grade, Springfield took their revenge from their first-round upset to overcome a spirited Hikurangi side 3-1 on Saturday afternoon while Old Girls scored with five minutes to go to take the 2-1 win over WGHS. Maungakaramea had the bye.

Squash
Titles at North and South Island Juniors
Zac Laing won the under 11 boys' title at the South Island Junior Age Groups in the holidays while his brother Josh was runner-up in the under 13 boys. At the North Island Age Groups held in the first weekend of the holidays, Flynn Venmore won the under 15 boys' title.

All three boys are from the Manaia squash club. Northland had 19 juniors playing at the North Island age groups squash championships held in Hamilton recently with only two making the trek down to Invercargill. Most of the representatives equalled or exceeded their rankings, with a number of top 10 finishes. Venmore had two hard matches on his way to claiming the title. In his semifinal, he had to hold off the No 1 seed before eventually winning in five sets. The final was also a see-saw affair with Venmore racing to a two-set advantage before his Wellington opponent, Oliver Dunbar, fought back to level the match. The final set was locked at five-all before the Northlander took control to win 11/4 11/8 8/11 8/11 11/6. Zac Laing also put in a fighting performance in the U11 boys final before going down to No 1 seed, Zezima Waitai from the Bay of Plenty 9/11 11/6 12/10/11/6. At the South Island Juniors 10-year-old Zac Laing won all three of his round-robin games before taking out the under-11 boys' event while older brother Josh had a couple of close five-set battles in his round-robin draw and ended up just being pipped for the U13 title.