Westlake Girls High School became the first Auckland team to win the Girls Secondary Schools National Championship since Northcote College were victorious in 2006.

Defeating St Andrew’s College, form Christchurch 99-66 in the Final they became just the 17^th winner of the C.A. Clarke and Stone Trophy – awarded to the Girls ‘AA’ National Champions.

Remarkably, Westlake and Northcote are the only two North Harbour teams to have won the title since it was first played for in 1969.

Congratulations also to Takapuna Grammar School competing at the Girls Championship for the first time since 2004. 

The Auckland Senior A Champions finished a creditable 13^th but could so easily have had a top eight finish having taken Hamilton Girls High School to the wire in a Preliminary Quarter-Final tie before losing 83-77. Their future looks bright with most of the squad returning next year.

Rosmini College made it all the way to the Boys Grand Final but were undone by a powerful Christ’s College team in the championship game going down 87-52.

Rosmini can take mild satisfaction from the fact that they are only the third school, in the 55 year history of the championships, to have contested four consecutive Grand Finals – the others were Westlake Boys (2012-2015) and Church College in the 1980’s.

Of our two other Boys representatives, Rangitoto College finished 9^th while Westlake finished in 13^th place. Coach Kenny Stone has coached his final game for Rangitoto College after 9 stellar years at the helm and two National titles.

Two Harbour players competing at the Championships had additional cause to celebrate last week after being named to the New Zealand U17 3x3 teams to attend the FIBA U17 Asia Cup in Malaysia.

Joel Brown (Rangitoto College) and Zoe Richardson (Westlake Girls) will be heading to Kuala Lumpur later this month.

Amongst our former players in the pros Rob Loe was again in fine form as the Sky Sport Breakers celebrated their homecoming with a 71-65 Australian NBL win against the Tasmanian Jack Jumpers. Rob finished with a solid 7 points (3/4FG) and 7 rebounds.

Sam Waardenburg has scored 6 points in each of his first two games as a professional player following his career at the University of Miami. Sam, a former Harbour and Rangitoto College standout, is playing for Cairns Taipans who have started 2-0 in the Australian NBL.

In Europe Tera Reed had a massive double-double of 27 points (8/14FG, 8/10FT) and 11 rebounds as Tampereen Pyrintö lost a tight one at Kotka Peka 82-76 in the Finnish League.