Lizzie Stapleton Coffey, the inaugural Te Aratai College Orienteering team member had a fantastic three days of orienteering up in Counties Manukau for the NZ Secondary Schools Orienteering Champs.

The event started with individual sprint championships at Mountfort Park, also using Leabank Primary School and James Cook High School maps. Great maps with tight technical buildings and open parkland for faster running. It was so wet and boggy over most of the open grassed areas that it made for interesting running conditions and there were some really spectacular slides and muddy runners at the finish.

The second day of the competition moved out to Kohekohe for the individual long course championships. Kohekohe is an amazing area of rolling open farmland with a pocket of pine trees near the finish area. The sun came out, it was warm and the competition was pretty fast and fierce.

The final day was the school's relay championships on another stunning map at Karioitahi. The sun was out again for this one and like the long course championships the day before, all teams were hyped for the last day of competition. Relay championships are always an exciting and fun day. Those runners that did not have three from their school present to field a school relay team still got to participate in composite teams that were grouped together from other schools.

Congratulations Lizzie on superb results at her first NZ Secondary Schools Orienteering Championship event:

Junior Girls Sprint Championships: 8th

Junior Girls Long Course Championships: 8th

Junior Girls Relay: 13th fastest time of the day