Showing a clean pair of heels, four teams put down their marker after completing the opening day’s play with unbeaten records at the NZ Secondary Schools Netball Champs in Christchurch on Tuesday.
Auckland trio Howick College, Avondale College and Saint Kentigern College were joined by St Mary’s College Wellington to top their respective pools after two rounds of pool play.
Hosted by the Christchurch Netball Centre, the popular tournament features the top 16 secondary schools who qualified following the respective Upper North Island, Lower North Island and South Island Secondary School events.
Split into four pools, the initial focus for the teams during Tuesday and Wednesday morning’s play is chasing a spot in the top two of their respective pools and with it a place in the top eight to remain in contention for the title.
Howick College set the pace in Pool A after getting their campaign under way with a well-constructed 52-25 win over St Andrew’s College.
Meeting cross-town rivals Westlake Girls High School in their second match, Howick got away to a flyer and after taking a 14-4 lead at the first break never looked back in clinching a comprehensive 44-25 win.
Westlake struggled to string consistent phases together against the well-drilled Howick side where goal attack Zermahnia Manu and wing attack Skylah Tainui-Takerei were instrumental in driving an impressive attack line.
Howick dominated at both ends of the court with accurate shooting at the scoring end, while the tall and athletic defensive pairing of Avah Sila and Eseta Waqaira became more influential the longer the match progressed.
St Mary’s College Wellington has the front-running in Pool B after posting a strong 42-27 early win over Christchurch Girls’ High School. The team from Wellington further flexed their muscle with a comfortable 47-32 win over Mt Albert Grammar School.
The well-performed shooting pair of Phoenix Schwalger and London Sciascia-Taufao ensured St Mary’s College delivered consistently high returns during the first three-quarters of the match where they produced double-digit scores while restricting Mt Albert to single-digit figures.
Down by 21 goals at three-quarter time, Mt Albert Grammar finished strongly to outscore their opponents in the last quarter but left their run too late.
With matches played over four 10-minute quarters, defending champions Avondale College showed their intent to take control of Pool C with two decisive first day wins, opening their account with a comfortable 41-34 win over St Hilda’s Senior A.
Finding their groove in accomplished fashion that was followed up with a polished 47-29 win over St Margaret’s College in their second outing.
Building throughout, Avondale shrugged off a tight 10-all first quarter impasse with a forceful showing.
Shooter and captain Priscilla Rasmussen was a key figure under the hoop where she thrived through her strong positional play and accuracy, Avondale impressing with their slick through-court attacking play.
Getting better the longer the match wore on, Avondale’s defensive duo of Amarnie Harris and Grace Jarvie-Otufanagavalu chimed in perfectly through a dominant second half as they continued to pile the pressure on the St Margaret’s shooters.
Last year’s beaten finalists Saint Kentigern College hold the upper hand in Pool D following untroubled wins over Tawa College (47-30) and Columba College (44-34), respectively.
The final round of pool matches will be played on Wednesday morning with Westlake Girls High School, St Andrew’s College, Mt Albert Grammar School, Christchurch Girls’ High School, St Margaret’s College, Scots College, Tawa College and Epsom Girls Grammar Premier all looking to press their claims for the top eight.
Cross-over matches will be played on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday to determine the make-up of Friday’s final place play-offs.
The final of the NZ Secondary School Champs will be played at 1.40pm on Friday.