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North Harbour’s college premier netball grade has new champions, after Whangaparāoa College took the title last month.
It is the first time in the school’s history that it has won the premier grade. The college, which is considerably smaller than many of its rivals, such as Rangitoto, Westlake and Carmel, last made the North Harbour premier final in 2017, when the team placed second.
In this year’s final, on August 19, Whangaparāoa played Rangitoto Premier 1 team, and lead from the second quarter, before winning by six goals, 33-27.
Team manager, Kristy McCullough, says the key to success was hard work, grit and determination.
“They also went into it with heart, pride and the desire to win,” she says. “The girls wanted to do it for their school, and all the supporters.”
She says the work of coach Jenna Brown was also crucial to the win. Jenna played in Ōrewa College’s winning team in the late 1990s, so she has now both played in, and coached, a winning team.
Mostly made up of Year 11 and 12 students, with just three Year 13s (including three North Harbour rep players) Whangaparāoa College’s premier netball team is a young side, which bodes well for next season too.
Some have played together since Year 5, and Kristy says that connection to each other and having fun has been a big factor in gelling so well as a team.
Local support came in many forms, from Stanmore Bay Leisure Centre’s Julie Bish, who put the team through six weeks of pre-season Grit training, to business sponsors such as Midway Carpets and Ze Build.
The team will pick up their trophy and gold medals later this month, and meanwhile they are off to Hamilton for UNISS.
A full school assembly, the week after the win, including a haka by students from the college’s bilingual unit, He Kupenga Rua a Tāne, was a moving tribute to the team’s success.
