Raroa headed to Tawa to regain the Williams Cup in what was the closest fought exchange in its 10 year history.

Rugby League 9s

Our team fought valiantly against a much larger Tawa team but unfortunately we were on the wrong side of a 42 - 12 scoreline at full time. The first quarter started well and we went 6-0 up after Luke Flowerdew scored an amazing try from 40 metres out. At this stage an upset was on the cards. Tawa then scored 30 unanswered points but we continued to battle bravely - with player of the day Tre Love to the fore. We finished strongly with another Luke Flowerdew score assisted by the Sutton brothers - Jordan and Josh. Raroa produced an excellent performance and the scoreline did not reflect the effort that was put in. Well done boys.

Team: Tre Love, Jacob Dolan, Sam White-Spence, Bo Beukes, Jordy Sutton, Josh Sutton, Luke Flowerdew, Maxwell Buckley, Harry Law, Davan Ormsby-Ryder

Table Tennis

A huge day for the Raroa Table Tennis team saw, Louis Priestly-Spicer, Connor Allison, Lucas Colon-Rivera and Mohammed Jaber dominate their counterparts. With some excellent skill and even better hand-eye coordination, the Raroa boys moved their counterparts around with relative ease. There were 16 games in total, Raroa cruised to victory 16-0. Top work lads!

Team: Louis Priestly-Spicer, Connor Allison, Lucas Colon-Rivera and Mohammed Jaber

Indoor Bowls

The Indoor bowls was another gripping affair with most games coming down the final end. The relatively unknown sport was the centre of attention, drawing big crowds as the intensity grew thicker. Raroa’s quartet of Mischa Holley, Ha-yeon Lee, Charlie Wragg and Isla McKenzie showed an outstanding amount of composure throughout the event. Raroa won the first 3 singles matches before dropping the final one and the first doubles game. It was then left to Lead Mischa and Skip Charlie to bring the victory home. Some excellent placement and beautiful finishes saw Raroa claim the Indoor Bowls crown.

Team: Mischa Holley, Ha-yeon Lee, Charlie Wragg and Isla McKenzie

Badminton

Badminton is always a close fought contest between Raroa and Tawa and this Exchange proved no different. We started with boys and girls doubles and then moved on to mixed doubles games. All the games were agonisingly close with Jedh Rancho and Marissa Wu leading the way for the girls and Rick Wong and Arjun Chandran playing some fantastic shots for the boys. Tawa just edged the battle but most games went to the final shot. Fantastic effort and sportsmanship from all Raroa players. Well done.

Team: Jedh Racho, Marissa Wu, Katarina Skrynzka, Zara Roe, Arjun Chandran, Rick Wong, Daniel Soh, Snehith Jampala

Chess

It is always an honour to watch Chess played and the 18 minute games that were played out at the exchange ensured that excitement was not in short supply. Although games were close we showed our strength in the real sport of kings. The team of Toby Smith, Blake Chambers, Daniel Roscoe and Adam Rogers all performed admirably and demonstrated superb sportsmanship throughout the games. A superb win for Raroa.

Team: Toby Shannon, Blake Chambers, Mitchell Su, Adam Rogers.

Aerobics

It was great seeing 7 of our aerobics teams performing at Tawa this year. The energy was high, costumes looked great and everyone worked hard to bring strength and timing to their routines. A massive thanks to Gemma Lowther for her support with coaching both Raroa and Tawa teams as well as being our judge for this Exchange. Offstage, it was fantastic hearing both schools cheering on each other! Well done Raroa for taking out the overall win.

Teams:

• Olive Martin, Ashleigh Keall, Meggan Dolman, Leonora Webb

• Abbie Sutherland, Maia Suttie, Phoebe Lucy

• Molly Mills, Laney Chapman-Myhill, Lucy Roach, Anika Bowman

• Rhi Parry, Emily Mora, Niamh McClure, Bethan Haszard

• Jessica Wilson, Brie Chin, Caterina Cao, Sofya Ganyusheva, Arushi De Silva, Alicia Roberts

• James Catherwood, Brianna Williams-Sos, Neve Turner, Isabella Stephens, Kate Lewis, Hannah Wharehinga

• Marissa Wu, Vasha Arunthavathas, Jedh Racho

Girls Hockey

Coming off our three way top of the pool win at the WRISSA Hockey tournament a week prior, and a 2-1 win against Tawa- we were excited to play the strong girls team again!

With the freezing conditions and an away game, Raroa couldn’t hold off the attack from the Tawa players. With an early 3-0 lead, Raroa fought back to put a shot into the goal to make it 3-1. However Raroa ended up losing the game 6-1.

An exceptional fight from the defence in the team, and a great, fun game!

Team: Holly Familton, Isla McKenzie, Lucy Prince, Erina McNutt, Lucy Roach, Jasmine Cornes, Zoe Mitchell , Rhianna Parry, Jessie Holland and Lily Fenwick

Year 7 Netball

Raroa Yr 7 A Netball team had a great game against a tough Tawa side. Raroa went out well splitting the first quarter, some pinpoint feeding from Liv Pritchard and Rylee Adamson set up some great shooting from Maia Suttie and Leni Cuff. Alice Patchall created a couple of great turnovers to give Raroa more attacking opportunities. The next two quarters proved to be tough with Nasi Meafo’ou, Maddix Maxwell-Cowell and Phoebe Lucy being kept busy in the defence, their outstanding work rate against a rampant Tawa attack was rewarded with a number of excellent turnovers. Laney Chapman-Myhill at centre and Maia Suttie at WD picked off a number of passes and along with Liv saw Abbie Sutherland and Phoebe close the gap with some classy shooting. It wasn’t enough however, and in the end Raroa went down 20 to 27 to a talented Tawa side, a really enjoyable and exciting game to watch. We look forward to playing Tawa again during our season.

Team: Leni Cuff, Rylee Adamson, Maia Suttie, Alice Patchell, Nasi Meafo’ou, Phoebe Lucy, Abbie Sutherland, Laney Chapman-Myhill, Liv Pritchard, Maddix Maxwell-Cowell

Year 8 Netball

The girls had a great win over their counterparts from Tawa. Strong defending and the ability to read the play meant a heap of intercepts from Ella Barr, Sam Thomas, and Cara McCully. The ball was moved beautifully through the court, sift passes and great vision by Cara McCully, Celena Gotico, Mia Woodley, and Sophie Cunningham. The team was then able to convert this into points with accurate shooting in the circle by Angel Ridout, Adi Savutini and Chloe Malpass. It was an excellent display of teamwork, one the girls should be proud of and which sets them up for a successful season.

Team: Ella Barr, Sam Thomas, Cara McCully, Celena Gotico, Mia Woodley, Sophie Cunningham, Angel Ridout, Adi Savutini and Chloe Malpass.

Flag

The Girl's Flag team was well beaten by a classy Tawa side. For many of the students, it was their first game of Flag. It was a great experience for them to play against quality opposition and get an idea of how the game is played. The girls played with enthusiasm and by the end had made some great plays on both attack and defence. Well done girls.

Team: Maddie Flutey, Celena Gotico, Adi Savutini, Cara McCully, Ava Kinikinilau, Zaylah Ordona, Noma Makunga, Larissa Bailey

Boys Football

For the first time in Tawa Exchange history, Raroa were able to play both Redhawk teams in the boys football. With both teams short on players due to clashes with other sports and injuries, we were able to pull from both teams for each of our games. The boys played their first game with great determination and energy, scoring two outstanding goals. The first from Kael Kincaid and Caleb Turner making the second - a sublime header into the back of the net off a superb cross into the box from Sam Malden. Two unfortunate penalties in the box meant the Tawa team edged us to win 4-2 at the final whistle.

Team: Eamonn McCarron, Jesiah Moon, Camden Gilchrist, Blake Porteous, Echelon Topp, Arana Cronin-Stone (c), Sam Malden, Aaron Dalton, Kael Kincaid, JJ Wembridge, Caleb Turner, Lucas Colon-Rivera, Connor Kemp

Boys Football 2nd XI

Our second game was played with just as much energy and the boys showed some classy football and great teamwork. Our midfield held strong and the boys worked off each other to create space and play some great balls through Tawa’s defensive line. We came away with a comfortable 6-2 win with some great goals scored with one in particular from Luke Flowerdew who, after dribbling through and around at least five Tawa players, skilled their keeper and walked the ball over the line!!

Team: Aaron Rogers, Theo Living, George Mills, Alfie Crookston, Fintan Sinclair, Alif Kusuma, Luke Flowerdew (c), Macintyre Stevens, Casey Young, Louis Priestly-Spicer, Samuel Hunter, Carol Simoes.

Girls Football

The girls put on an excellent display of team football. They put together some great passing enabling their players to get into space and use the pitch size to their advantage. They completely dominated the Tawa girls team with most of the game being played in the opposition half. Some great goals were scored with the final score standing at 7-2 on the final whistle. It was great to see how the girls have built on their performance at the Inter Intermediate tournament and putting all their hard practice into reality.

Team: Iona Chaytor, Iley Nunns, Laney Chapman-Myhill, Kate Ross, Layla Parsons, Leonora Webb, Lucy Kemp, Molly Mills, Ruby Carman, Bella Thompson, Savannah Bridgeman, Scarlett O’Donnell, Ava Robb, Darcie Boobier

Boys Hockey

The Boys Hockey team completed a remarkable comeback after being down 2-0 at half time to overcome a very strong Tawa side 4-2.

The team was led by a courageous Luke Naftel who was feeling under the weather on a freezing cold day.

Cam Jaine collected a well deserved player of the day and capped a memorable exchange with a brace of goals.

Trijal Pednekar, Arham Jain and Tom Neville were outstanding in defence to keep Tawa scoreless in the second half.

The boys are an outstanding group of young men and they have an exciting challenge ahead as they travel to Tauranga for the AIMS Games in September.

A huge thank you to Richard Living who has put a lot of time into training the boys in 2019.

Team: Luke Naftel ( c ), Cam Jaine, Arham Jain, Trijal Pednekar, Tom Neville, Alex Anderson, Ben Adamson, Nico Stewart, Theo Living and James Catherwood

Boys Basketball

The boys basketball came out with fantastic energy and tenacity on defence. A number of stops lead to fast break buckets keeping us in the game at the half. In the second half the frantic pace eventually took its toll. Tawa slowed down the game and were able to execute on offence while we were unfortunately unable to convert chances at our end. The boys played with fantastic heart and were not willing to go down easily but unfortunately lost the game by a narrow margin.

Team: Josh Ingham, Jacob Prail, Brayden Chin, Omar Essahaty, Hugo Weatherly, Junior Kainano, Eli Prasad

Girls Basketball

Our girls were at a considerable height disadvantage going into this game and began with only 5 players due to some in the team playing other sports. The starting 5 stepped up to the challenge and gave Tawa everything they had throughout the first half, using skill, speed and determination to their advantage. We had a narrow lead at halftime as a result. In the second half the Raroa girls erupted to create a huge lead. Every single player contributed on both ends of the court throughout the game whether it be with selfless passing, scoring or tenacious defence. The final score 40-19 to Raroa.

Team: Ava Kinikinilau, Iona Chaytor, Maddie Flutey, Jessie Holland, Celena Gotico, Cara McCully, Ella Barr, Phoebe Lucy

Girls Volleyball

A less experienced side, the Raroa girls weren’t sure what to expect in their first game as a team in a competitive volleyball game. After dropping the first set the girls bounced back with fantastic poise and determination to win the second. Consistent serving and great communication meant they were able to scramble when a pass may have been off target. Unfortunately in the 3rd set the girls lost their rhythm losing by only a few points. They conducted themselves exceptionally well and gained valuable experience moving towards future exchanges.

Team: Julia Comoletti, Amelia Nicol, Mani Folau, Adi Savutini, Nasi Me’afoo’u, Betrix De la Paz, Ava Kinikinilau, Val Fretton, Rhianna Parry, Harriet Hewett

Boys Volleyball

The boy’s quality fundamental skills surprised Tawa out of the gate and Raroa mounted a significant lead in the first set. As the crowd grew in size favouring the home team, Tawa came back with a run of quality serves to take the second. Knowing that a win in this game meant we would win the exchange outright, our boys bounced back strong to take the third with great calling, consistent serves and some great execution. Tied at a set each it was going to come down to the 3rd and final set. The gymnasium was packed and the boys handled the pressure like professionals. Winning by the narrowest of margins they stuck together to seal the win not only for this match, but the entire exchange. The building erupted as the ball hit the ground on the final play. An experience they will never forget.

Team: Max Lee, Kael Kincaid, Junior Kainano, Braden Chin, Jesiah De la Paz, Victor Thompson, Harry Bealling, Mitchell Su, Rupert Hewett, Mohammed Jaber