Waitākere College had 6 teams competing in various National and regional tournaments around Auckland for winter tournament week. 

This year we sent our 1st XI Girls Football, Premier 1 and 2 netball and our Open Boys, Junior Boys and Junior Girls basketball teams to battle it out with other schools from all over New Zealand. 

A huge thank you to all the coaches, managers and helpers who attended the tournaments with our teams. All teams were fortunate to have top-quality coaches and managers with each team offering expertise, support and aroha to ensure our students could perform to the best of their abilities throughout the week. 

Premier 1 Netball - Joyce McManus, Jo Haora, Kelly Cunningham and Miss Fearnley
Premier 2 Netball - Miss Fearnley, Miss Coates and Chrysanthe Hawken
1st XI Girls Football - Miss Hutson, Tony Bedding and Mr. Hough
Open Boys Basketball - Mr Brain, Mr Cicchini and Mr Koonstra
Junior Girls Basketball - Mr Grace and Phil Skeen
Junior Boys Basketball - Mr Koonstra and Kevin Pitout

Girls 1st XI Football

The Girls' Football Tournament Week was held at Waikaraka Park and featured 24 competitive and devoted schools from across the country. Waitākere College brought a young squad of 16 girls, many of whom were participating in their first-ever Tournament Week.

The girls started with a dominant performance against Birkenhead College, securing an impressive 5-0 victory. Aimee Dickins opened the scoring with an outstanding long-range effort, followed by goals from Samara Trail, Sienna Hiko, Aria Rogers and Chardonnay Viviers. 

The next match was a resilient and hard-fought battle against King's College, where the girls defended tirelessly and managed to grab a last-minute equaliser through Samara Trail. The game ended in a 1-1 draw against a team many had predicted to be tournament favourites.

Despite facing tough opponents with Paraparaumu College and Western Springs College and suffering a couple of losses, the girls showed tremendous teamwork and determination. They bounced back to defeat ACG Strathallan in a 4-1 display of positive, attacking football.

As the week progressed, the girls triumphed over local rivals St Dominic's in a thrilling penalty shoot-out. In a match that had all the tension and excitement of a true derby, Waitākere College emerged victorious, silencing their "noisy neighbours." Ashleigh Barnes scored the decisive penalty, giving Waitākere College all the bragging rights.

The final game of the tournament saw the girls secure a convincing win against Orewa College, with goals from Aria Rogers, Aimee Dickins and Sienna Hiko. This result placed Waitākere College 13th overall. Although this game marked the end of the girls' tournament journey, it will serve as a catalyst for the 2025 season.

Special recognition must go to Tylah Su’aausane, who played her final game for Waitākere College during the tournament. As captain, Tylah led the team with unwavering dedication and made several crucial saves that kept the team in contention throughout the week. Her leadership and presence on the field will be greatly missed.

Paenunu Tepapauoatua was awarded Waitākere College’s Most Valuable Player of the tournament for her outstanding performances at right-back. Paenunu was exceptional defensively, making numerous crucial tackles and interceptions. She also scored a remarkable header and showed great composure when converting her penalty against St Dominic's.

Junior Girls Basketball:

On Saturday, the girls won their opening game 81-36 against Rangitoto.
Coach Skeen and key player Cy couldn't make their second game. We struggled with foul trouble and couldn't get combinations to fire and eventually lost 43-80 to Northcote.

Sunday was always going to be tough without Coach Skeen or key players Cy, Adia, Zoe and new recruit Florence. We had a narrow loss 55-66 against Kristen. This was especially impressive as we only had 4 players for the final quarter after 2 players fouled out. 

We only had 6 players available for our second game against Takapuna and again this was knocked down to 5 for the final quarter due to one player fouling out. We were down 26-70 for the last quarter so the girls showed amazing heart and character to fight back 43-76.

On Monday we had an agonisingly close game with Epsom. We lost 73-72. The full team was available but half were exhausted from yesterday and the other half were a little rusty from not playing yesterday. The girls had their second chance game (4th vs 5th after pool play) against Takapuna to reach the semi-finals, we managed to win 90-40.

In the semi-final, the Junior girls put up a fight against unbeaten Northcote. We were up 16-5 after the 1st.  Still up 27-23 at the half. Fatigue started showing in the third as Northcote only had 1 game yesterday. Down 36-44 after 3 and finished down 56-49 in the end.  This was the closest game Northcote had in the tournament.

In the 3rd and 4th playoffs, the girls played exceptionally well to beat Kristen 80-27 to finish 3rd, well done team!

Junior Boys Basketball

Our JR Boys competed in the Junior Premiership tournament last week and battled to a great 5-1 record and a bronze medal.

The tournament began with a challenging game against Pukekohe. After a back and forth first quarter, the team won the remaining three quarters led by strong performances from Kaedyn Nancarrow and Christian Keys. Waitākere 104 Pukekohe 56. The second game of the day against Howick College was a much closer affair. A dominant third quarter turned a 4-point lead into a 24-point margin. Final score: Waitākere 83, Howick College 67. The third game of the group came against a very resolute Botany Downs team. A tightly contested saw the boys edge away in the final few minutes and win 87-82. A strong performance from Lewis Money turned the game in our favour. 

Waitākere emerged from the group stage with a perfect 3-0 record but faced up against a familiar foe in Mount Roskill. At the beginning of Term 3,  we lost our playoff game against Roskill and the boys were out for revenge. Mount Roskill started strong and took a quick 20-8 lead. Emerging from the timeout with courageous and resolute defence, the Waitākere boys made a 12-0 run and closed the quarter even on the scoreboard. Through their defense, Jonathan Fotukava-Helu (20 PTS, 8 Steals) and Christian Keys (33 PTS, 8 Steals) took control of the game and Waitākere dominated the following three quarters leading to a 98-52 final score. 

A game in the semi-finals against a strong Westlake team didn't go the way of the Waitākere boys. Leading at the end of the first and handling the press of Westlake well, the second quarter saw injuries and foul problems cut the legs out of our semi-final appearance. Manaaki Pamatatau had a strong game and had 12 points. The final score was 107 Westlake, 72 Waitākere. 

The consolation final came against Selwyn College. A game that both teams desperately wanted resulted in a cagey, desperate game. Down by 11 points in the third quarter, the JR boys chipped away at the lead throughout the fourth. Taking the lead with 2 minutes to play and emerging as the Bronze medal winners! Ethan Gambe had a tremendous performance with 15 points and 13 rebounds.
A shout out to Christian Keys who had an amazing tournament. He averaged 26 points on 66% shooting, 6.5 rebounds, 3.5 steals and 2 assists per game. 

Prem 1 Netball

A youthful exuberance with plenty of lessons for all players, our main goal was growth and development. This week we definitely learnt a lot about what is needed to play tournament week. This team grew continually and always tried to put their best foot forward.  Many girls have 2 or 3 years left within prems. 2 of our players Ella and Vanesah have 4 years and already show great skills in netball at Waitākere College.

The team achieved many personal goals at Uniss and narrowly missed out on the top 16 by 3 points. Our defence Adria Gawn, Nanci Mapa-Tupou, Vanesah Mapa-Tupou led by Jaden Lauvale turning over ball every game.  Our shooters Emily McCarthy, Belle Ah Van, Peyton Nathan and Ella Jorgensen may not be the tallest but the accuracy and range are impressive. Special mention to Belle (yr11) who was named in the A grade tournament team and this is not easy. Out of 384 players in A grade, only 20 get named. Our midcourters Azaria Williams, Ivana Vui, Madison- Rose led by Leah McGrath were sharp and fast getting to circle edge with smart plays and accurate feeds.

This was the last year for Leah who had an exceptional tournament. The lead Captain showed heart, compassion and what it means to play for the blue dress. We wish her all the best in her future endeavours.

Prem 2 Netball

This year our premier 2 team had the privilege of being invited to Tournament week. They had a remarkable experience at UNISS as an invitational squad which made our future in netball very exciting. As an invitational, you can not qualify for the top 16 but if this wasn’t the case our awesome team would have made the top 16 and had a great chance to even make the top 8. They approached each game with determination, giving their all on the court and demonstrating impressive growth both individually and as a team. The tournament was not only a test of their skills but also an opportunity for them to bond and enjoy the game. Their hard work, camaraderie, and enthusiasm made the event a memorable one, and we couldn’t be prouder of their resilience.

Open Boys Basketball

Tournament week, saw the Open Boys play 8 international-length games in just 4 days. It was a chance for us to prove to ourselves that in 2025 we deserve to be playing with the big schools of Auckland’s basketball scene after a very successful season that had led us to winning the Greater Auckland Basketball Championship.
Three of those 8 games were against Premier Schools (Sacred Heart, St Kents & MAGS), and another was against a Senior A school (Northcote), all playing all season in the elite grades. We desperately wanted a victory against one of these 4 teams!

Game 1 was versus Sacred Heart. We went down 110 to 70, after leading most of the 1st quarter and looking like the better team. Game 2 was versus Ormiston. We won that game 76-72 in the end, but it was a dramatic game with 8 or 10 lead changes. Pukekohe was our 3rd opponent. Again, we led large portions of the first half, but late in the 1st half, they got a big run on us, and we went down.

Then we lined up against our strongest opponent in pool play, St Kents. To our surprise, their coach started all 3 of his New Zealand stars. (Against all other teams, he rested them until the 4th quarter, we later found out he had scouted us at Auckland champs and saw us as a genuine threat). This was a game we lost, but we walked off feeling like we had won. We led most of the first half and were the better team, and St Kents had to keep their stars they were trying to conserve until playoffs on the court just to keep up with us. We ended up losing 80-90.

Game 5 was against Western Springs. It warmed my heart to see a bunch of old boys take time out to turn up to watch us play one of our traditional rivals. We dominated this match and won by 40 points. And this put us in a playoff match against another top Premier School, MAGS. They had the advantage of not having a 5th pool game, so when they played us that evening, it was their first match of the day and they were well-rested. Unfortunately for them, we were motivated and fired up. This was a 3rd opportunity to knock over a prem school, and the boys wanted it badly. We lead this game for ¾ of the match. The pressure we applied saw their coach get upset and ejected for bad behaviour. In the end, in the 4th quarter, MAGS quality came through, and they took a late lead. While we were only behind by 4 in the final 2 minutes, trying to force a result saw us take risks that didn’t pay off, and we lost by about 11 points.

The final day saw us face up against the Northcote team, a Senior A school, coached by the Tall Ferns coach. We completely dominated this match. If we chose to we could have won by a huge margin, which stretched out to 40 at one point, but using our bench to see our starters fit for the final game meant Northcote closed the game to 25 points.

So our final game was against fellow Auckland Champs qualifiers, Long Bay, who we had beaten by 1 point in overtime. It turns out I wasted my motivational talk, as one of the Long Bay Boys said to Josiah Skeen that we didn’t deserve to win that match (when the score in this game was still 0-0). So I was misplaced in giving myself credit for thinking my words had allowed Josiah to grow an extra leg. He completely dominated Long Bay in the opening quarter and Long Bay never recovered. We won this game by 25 points in the end, but at times led by 40. So we finished strong. 

We won 4 and lost 4 matches. We finished 13th. If we’d knocked over MAGS, we could have made the top 10 which was our goal. We were so close! Player of the tournament was Josiah Skeen. But he was joined by amazing performances by Mahonri Schwalger, Ojan Sa’u, Tautai Rapira, Tyrell Mangu, & Iafeta Adnan.
At the end of the season, we went through the western zone competition, won it, undefeated. As a result, we went to Auckland Champs, and the only team to beat us did so by 1 basket in overtime, and we ended up winning the competition final with a comprehensive victory against that same team.

So to then go to tournament, and play 3 of Auckland’s Premier teams and lead large portions of those 3 games, and to play and comprehensively beat a Senior A team, and to dominate teams who gave us close runs at Auckland Champs, shows we’re in a great position heading into 2025, where we have to win a promotion/relegation match against Manurewa in Term 1 to move out of Zone Basketball and into Senior A.  We lose a few Year 13 stars, but we’ve still got talent coming through the system to keep our open boys team strong.

Full Team List: Iafeta Adnan, Christopher Delibau, Marley Fruean, Heber Gasu, Zac George, Tyrell Mangu, Tautai Rapira, Charlie Reihana-Finau, Justine Romero, Ojan Sa’u, Mahonri Schwalger, Josiah Skeen.

Coaches: Philip Brain, Lennart Koonstra, Matt Cicchini