A Bay of Islands College student is having a year to remember after recently being named the New Zealand U16 AFL Player of the Year and selected to captain the NZ U16 team that competed in NSW in the South Pacific Nations Cup in April.
Te Kopa Tipene Thomas has been given the honour of leading the South Pacific Nations team out against the Australian state teams in the Term 2 holidays, and in August will be part of the NZ Hawks senior men's team contesting World Cup in Melbourne (at the MCG) over two-and-a-half weeks. Tipene Thomas has been driving to Auckland every weekend to train with the national squad for the past few weeks and, his school noted, will continue to do so leading up to the tournament.
Elsewhere, Bay College students dominated their divisions at the first Northland secondary school table tennis titles which were held at the Northland Table Tennis Centre in Whangarei recently. In the singles, Year 9 student Ryan Nankivell won all 11 of his matches only dropping one set in the tournament to take the novice title; while the girls team of sisters Tyler and Daynah Nankivell and Mikayla George were crowned Northland champs for the 4th consecutive year, beating Whangarei Girls 2-1 in the final.
Today, the open players contest the Northland secondary school table tennis championship, while a team will head to New Zealand championships in Auckland in September. The school also gave a big huge thank you to Table Tennis New Zealand who gifted two championship tables to the school each valued in excess of $1000.
In 1st XI football news, the girls are competing in the Northland secondary school premier competition. In the home and away midweek competition, the Bay College girls 1st XI travelled to Rodney last week, coming away with a 3-2 win and hosted Rodney recently in the final match of the season where they were poised for a top 3 finish. Bay College has also been dominating the opposition in U15 rugby with convincing wins over Pompallier Catholic College and Tauraroa. Yesterday saw the side playing a top-of-the-table clash against Kerikeri.
