Kia ora koutou,

It’s been a busy holiday period with students competing in a variety of events all over the country. We are also looking forward to the Mount Maunganui College Sports Awards on Wednesday 21 October.

Senior A Girls Basketball

The Mount Maunganui College Senior A Girls Basketball team made history at the end of Term 3 when they qualified for the national tournament for the first time in the history of the college. They went through their season in the Tauranga Premiere grade unbeaten to secure the only guaranteed spot for a Tauranga school.

Unfortunately, due to Covid, the Secondary School National Basketball Championships were cancelled. Instead the girls were invited to the Central Invitational Tournament in Palmerston North, along with the other top nine schools from Hamilton down to Wellington.

The team had worked hard over the disrupted season, travelling to play a number of schools and locations to find tough competition. Heading into the invitational tournament the girls knew they were in for a tough test, but also felt their thorough preparation would put them in good stead.

The girls came up against a strong Wellington East Girls College in their first game and managed to secure a 9 point victory. They continued through the early stages of the tournament winning four out of four games to make it into the semi-finals against the favourites of the tournament, Sacred Heart Girls College, Hamilton. Yet another gutsy performance from the Mount girls saw them secure a 68 - 61 win, and a spot in the final.

The final was streamed on Sky Sport Next and had our girls up against the defending national champions, St Peters. The final was a ding dong battle with the lead regularly changing throughout the game. By the time the final whistle blew the Mount Maunganui College Senior A team were down by five points but had proven themselves worthy competitors.

Congratulations to the staff, supporters and players who have put so much into their season and can be very proud of their achievements.

Further congratulations must go to Tia Lassey and Melika Samia who were named in the Tournament All Star Five.

With a lot of young talent coming through the team looks in a great position to continue to flourish in the coming seasons.

Netball Results

Congratulations to all our netball girls and the coaches and managers who gave up their time to make the season happen. Below is a list of results for the 13 netball teams we had this year.

Year 9
Division 1 MMA 9A 4th place
Division 2 MMC 9 Red 4th place
Division 3 MMC white 3rd place

Year 10
Div 3 MMC 10 Red 2nd place
Div 4 MMC 10 White 2nd place

Reserve 3

MMC Senior Black 3rd Place

Prem 3

MMC Senior A 2nd place
MMC Junior B 5th place
MMC Junior C 6th place

Prem 5
MMC Senior Red 1st place

Prem 2
MMC Junior A 2nd place

Prem 1 Div 2
MMC Prem 2 3rd place

Prem 1 Div 1
MMC Prem 1 2nd place

St Peter’s Premiere Invitational Netball Tournament
Our Prem 1 netball team travelled to St Peter's College, Cambridge, to compete in an invitational tournament. The team came up against some challenges and ended up 7th amongst a competitive field. The following words by head coach, Helena Hoult, sum up the tournament;

Resilient is the word to describe our team - we lost one of our main shooters to an ankle injury and on Friday morning we lost three year 13’s to waterpolo, one being our captain. This left us with six. We pulled two players in on Friday, one having to play Goal Shoot (out of position). We kept fighting. After our first game on Friday we lost another player, making it five players gone from our original team, but we kept going for ‘our girls’ and our manager. Man we were knocked down more than once, the character, grit, care and determination that our girls have for each other is an overwhelming feeling as a coach. The girls went out there not only to represent their school and Whānau, but for each other in a way that gives you absolute pleasure and pride to call them your TEAM....proud beyond words.

NZ Swimming Short Course Championships

A number of our students competed at the Aon NZ Short Course Championships in Hamilton in the second week of the holidays and did their clubs and families proud. Results below;

Molly Shivnan U18 Age Group
200M Free Silver
50M Back Silver and age group & open BOP record
400M Free Silver
50M Free Gold
100M Free Gold and age group & open BOP record
100M Back Gold and age group & open BOP record
800M Free Silver
200M Back Bronze

Zyleika Pratt-Smith U16 Age Group
100M Backstroke Gold and BOP Record
100M Breaststroke Gold
50M Breaststroke Gold
400M Medley Gold and BOP Record
100M Medley Silver
50M Backstroke Silver
200M Medley Gold and BOP Record

Lily Cooney U16 Age Group
200M Free 6th
50M Back 7th
400M Free 8th
100M Medley 6th
50m Free 14th
100M Free 8th

Kasha Stokes U16 Age Group
50M Back 6th

Talitha McEwan U14 Age Group
50M Free Gold
100M Free Gold
200M Free Gold
400M Free Gold
800 Free Gold
1500 Free Gold
100M Medley Gold
200M Medley Gold
400M Medley Gold
50M Back Gold
100M Back Silver
200M Back Gold

Monique Bartlett U13 Age Group
200M Free Gold
400M Free Gold
50M Free Bronze
100M Free Silver
1500M Free Gold

Molly, Lucy, Lily and Zyleika were also part of the 4 x 100M Free relay team who took out a gold medal in the Open division by four one hundredth of a second.

National Scholastics Surfing Competition

Six out of the 12 members of the Bay of Plenty Surf team which competed at the National Scholastics Championships in Kaikoura last week were Mount Maunganui College students. 

The team placed 2nd behind the Canterbury team in testing, choppy conditions.

The following students all made it to the finals of their division at scholastics which was a massive achievement.

Jacob Saunders won the prestigious Adam Clegg Award for breakthrough performer of the event (voted by all competitors at the comp) and also finished runner up in under 18 boys

Sophia Brock finished runner up in Under 14 girls division

Sonny Eades finished 3rd in the longboard division

Anna Brock finished third in under 16 girls division

Tava Santorik finished 4th in under 14 boys division

Congrats to all students on their amazing achievements.

Rugby League

Congratulations to Year 13 student, Rawiri Matthews, who has been named in the NZ U18 Rugby League team to take on the NZ Secondary School League Team. This selection comes off the back of Rawiri’s selection in the Men’s WaiCoa Bay team and some strong performances for his club side, The Whalers, throughout the season.

PE teacher, Alex Parker, has been named assistant coach of the NZ Under 16 Rugby League team. Congratulations, Alex.

Tauranga Senior B Volleyball

Ollie O'Dea, Jacob Capes, Kylen Scholmann, Javaan Wihapi were all a part of the Tauranga Senior B Volleyball team that headed down to Wellington to compete in an invitational tournament for four days last week. It is a great achievement for these Year 10 and 12 boys to make a senior men's team and the experience they received against older competition will be invaluable for them as they continue to play volleyball.

Tauranga Waterpolo

The Mount Maunganui College Senior A Girls Waterpolo team happens to make up the vast majority of the Tauranga U18 waterpolo team. The girls travelled to Christchurch to compete in the Interprovincial National Championships. After injuries to Ashlee Lemoto and Chanelle West early in the tournament the girls didn’t get the result they were looking for and ended up finishing 6th amongst some tough opposition.

Year 12 student, Angus Porter, was named in the Boys U18 team. This team also travelled to Christchurch to compete in the Interprovincial National Championships. After a hard fought battle against North Harbour in the semi final where Tauranga won by one goal the boys took on Canterbury for the gold medal.

They beat Canterbury 5 to 9 and brought home the trophy.

Secondary School Mountain Bike Championships

A team of 11 Mountain Bikers made their way down to Hutt Valley in the second week of the school holidays to compete in the Secondary School Mountain Bike Championships. Within the event were categories such as downhill, enduro and cross country. Our students competed across these categories gaining enjoyment and experience.

Special mention must go to Year 9, Poppy Lane, who finished 3rd in the U14 Enduro category and 2nd in the Individual Cross Country category.

Hope Gibbard also performed exceptionally well coming 4th overall in the Female U20 Eduro division.

Well done to all competitors.

Sports Awards
Sports Awards are being held Wednesday 21 October in the school hall. An email has been sent out to all nominees for prizes and these students are expected to attend the evening. Their parents are also warmly invited.

Any other students who would like to go to support their team are welcome to attend.

Senior Volleyball Trials

The senior A and B girls volleyball trials will be held in the school gym at the following times:

Wednesday 14 October 5:30pm to 7:30p
Monday 19 October 7:30pm to 9pm

Any apologies please to Mr Horlock

Note - any new players are welcome. There will be two competitive teams selected for the 2021 season. Any other senior teams will be selected in term one 2021.

Social Media

The Sports Department has updated their Social Media pages. Please follow us on.

• Facebook: Mount Maunganui College Sport

• Instagram: Mount Maunganui College Sport