All at Harbour Basketball wish to congratulate Tessa Talo-Tomokino on accepting a basketball scholarship offer from Northeastern State University.

The Harbour U19 guard is set to play NCAA Division II basketball for Northeastern State later this year. NSU are known as the RiverHawks and are coached by Fala Bullock who is looking forward to having Tessa on her roster.

“We are very excited to welcome Tess to our RiverHawks family, Tess is scratching the surface on her ability. Her size on the wing and ability to play on both ends will be fun to watch. Her international experience will prepare her to transition and bring a competitiveness to our programme.”

That international experience has seen Tessa represent New Zealand on a number of occasions. In 2018 she played for the Junior Tall Ferns at the U18 Asian Championship in India and also travelled to India with the NZ U17 team in 2017.

Tessa was also a member of the victorious Mt Albert Grammar School that won the Auckland Secondary Schools Premier title in 2018.

Tessa has played for Harbour through the age-groups since she was 13 years-old and won a New Zealand national title with the U17 team in in 2017.

She has had many influential coaches including Bronwen Davidson, Kevin Braswell, JK (Julie Kelman-Poto) and Jody Cameron.

“Without the Harbour rep programme and MAGS and the New Zealand team, it would have been very hard for me to achieve this goal. It exposed me to a high level of basketball.

“If it wasn’t for Jody I don’t think I would be playing basketball right now. My first passion was netball - Jody was doing basketball sessions at St Marys School and, through a friend, I was invited to training. She believed in me and my potential and four years later I’m about to head to the States,” said Tessa.

Tessa has been thinking about attending college for the last couple of years.

“I was in year 12 when I thought it was in reach but it was just an option at the time.”

Tess went for a visit to Tahlequah, Oklahoma in early February and was immediately sold on Northeastern.

“I was amazed at how beautiful the Northeastern campus was. The coaches were really nice, I got to train with the team and hang out with a few of my future teammates. I also got to meet some of the community and they were really welcoming people. My mum who was also travelling with me really liked the people we met which was important.”  

Tess, who hopes to study criminology or law will be heading to Northeastern after U19 Nationals.

“My flights are booked for June 13^thand I will start summer school almost immediately. I’m very excited, open minded to the style of play and the people and can’t wait to get over there”, enthused Tessa.

Go well Tessa!