College sport: Kelston head into unknown

By JENNI RUTHERFORD

Kelston Boys High School are sailing into the uncharted waters of finals cricket.

The New Lynn college are on their way to their first final of the Auckland secondary schools R. H. Marryatt Cup against St Kentigern College on Friday and if they win, they will plough head-first into the unknown.

Kelston beat the highly fancied King's College first XI by eight runs in a dramatic semifinal.

Batting first, Kelston were in deep trouble, all out for 113 and facing defeat as King's raced to 90-4.

Slick fielding kept Kelston alive, with King's keeling over, losing their remaining wickets for just six runs to be all out for 96.

Direct hits accounted for two runouts.

St Kentigern beat last year's Gillette Cup champions, Auckland Grammar, by three wickets in their semifinal to knock Grammar out of contention for back-to-back national glory.

St Kentigern, who boast talented old boys Adam Parore and Mark Richardson, will have a slight upper-hand, having beaten Kelston in recent seasons.

However, Kelston have broken into a three-school fold, dominated by King's College, Auckland Grammar and St Kentigern, needing to defeat St Kentigern to make a clean sweep of the trio this season.

Kelston have been concentrating on developing a crack side by regularly visiting Australia. They played six matches on their 2001 tour of Brisbane, the Gold Coast and Sydney, winning four of them.

But they are taking one game at a time, with each match from now on new territory.

The winner of the Auckland zone final will meet the winner of zone one (from Taupo south) to decide who will advance to the Gillette Cup finals in December.

TENNIS

Auckland Grammar are used to making history with outstanding achievements but have, for the first time since the start of the New Zealand secondary school teams tennis championships, failed to qualify for the event.

Grammar have been crippled by losing top players Simon Rea, Jacob Olsen and Brendan Wright, who have finished their college careers.

Fifth-former Kiril Tcherveniachki now leads the Grammar charge and will face tough competition today in the final of the champion of champions event at Stanley St.

Tcherveniachki will meet top seed Damien Mulhane (St Kentigern College) in the final of the senior boys singles.

Mulhane is a member of the St Kentigern team who will be at the national secondary school championships in Hamilton next month.

King's College have also qualified in the boys section, while Diocesan and Rangitoto College will represent the region in the girls competition.

As well as the girls team, Rangitoto will join Macleans College in the mixed grade.

Two Glendowie College sisters will battle each other in the senior girls champion of champions final. Julia and Marina Erakovic will face each other after winning their way through the quarter-finals and semifinals.

They will play together in the senior girls doubles final against a St Cuthbert's College pairing.

Promising youngster Rubin Statham (St Kentigern College) was forced to default his junior boys singles semifinal because of sickness. After winning his quarter-final match in straight sets, Statham defaulted in both his singles and doubles semifinals.

Auckland Grammar juniors Matthew Lyon and Rade Radinovich suffered a second-set scare before winning the junior boys doubles semifinal 6-2, 0-6, 6-3 over Andrew Allan and Martin Coll from St Peter's College.

This week:

Today: Auckland: champion of champions athletics finals, Mt Smart Stadium, yachting zone finals.

Tomorrow: Auckland: champion of champions tennis finals, orienteering, volleyball championships March 15-17. North Harbour: athletics championships.

Friday: North Island secondary schools rowing championships, Lake Karapiro March 16-18.

Auckland: R. H. Marryatt Cup cricket final.

Saturday: New Zealand windsurfing championships, Rotorua. Auckland: tennis, cricket.

Monday: Auckland: 3000m athletics championships.

Tuesday: Auckland: softball one-day tournament, senior touch rugby.

Counties Manukau: tennis championships.