In 2023, the Waikato Table Tennis teams competition was played each Friday evening across Terms 2 and 3. With 7 of the 12 team entries coming from HBHS, the red and black uniforms again dominated the vista across the 12 tables. HBHS teams took away the A grade competition in Term 2 followed by a nail biting loss in the Term 3 final. Our teams came away with an abundance of medals in the B grade over the two terms (2 golds, 1 silver, 1 bronze), with plenty of promising young talent shining through. The Waikato Individual Secondary Schools Championship took place at the end of Term 3 with our top performing players disappointingly missing out on medals. Our junior boys dominated the B grade division with gold and silver across the cup and plate finals.

The secondary school’s National competition was hosted by Hamilton this year with the Auckland schools dominating once again. Against heavily favoured Nationally ranked opposition, our A team of Oscar Li, Fraser Liao, and Keelan Gannon always showed the good old HBHS fighting spirit. In the individual competition all the aforementioned boys qualified for the B grade with Oscar and Fraser finishing in the top 8, and Keelan ending up in the top 16. The development teams consisting of Jayden Forshaw, Terrence Fu, Danny Yin, Aarya Vivekanandan, Matai Moorfield, Edmund Roberts, and Stephen Straker only dropped two games, finally meeting for the 5th and 6th play-off in the C grade.

Overall, the 2023 table tennis year was an enjoyable experience for both the competitive Friday night players and the social Monday afternoon players.

As Captain of Table Tennis, I hope that the players in future generations can continue to have fun playing table tennis, whether it be competitively or socially. Thanks go out to Mr Andrew Hay and Mrs Sajeela Ali for helping me run a successful year.