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The rise of Ōrewa College head girl Marnie Ursem in the sport of volleyball reached new heights recently when she was named in the NZ women’s team, the Volley Ferns, to play a series in Chile.
Marnie captains Ōrewa College’s premier girls indoor volleyball team, which won the Auckland Champs, with Marnie named most valuable player in that tournament.
She also led the team to silver at the Secondary School Nationals – it is the first time the college has made the national women’s volleyball final. Marnie is also in North Harbour’s U19 team, which won gold at the inter provincial championships.
Things were pretty hectic for her at the end of last month – she found out she was in the team heading to Chile just two weeks before they left, on June 25.
Her selection for the Volley Ferns came after training once a month since April with a squad of 40 in Christchurch. Marnie says those camps were fun, allowing her to play at a higher level and learn a lot from coach Sebastian Gonzalez and the other players.
Volleyball seems to be in the Ursem family’s DNA. Marnie’s older sister, Renei, was in the Volley Ferns team that played in Asia in 2019 and Marnie says during lockdown her family had many “quite competitive” round robin games at home.
The Year 13 student hopes to get a scholarship to play in the United States next year, something she has been working towards for some time.
