Boys’ Badminton
The boys’ inter-school badminton competition ran from
19 May through to the 11 August, playing every Tuesday
after school. Although we could only field one team, the
A-Grade team did Havelock North High School proud.
From the 11 games, they only lost two. Ben Waddington and Chris Meekin were in the A team last year,
and Kevin Gee and Ice Boonyung stepped up to make
the team. I would also like to thank MJ Peralta, Joseph
Belcher, and Andrew Russell who were coaxed into playing for our school when needed.
The boys’ team won convincingly against our Sports
exchange with Tawa College 4–2 but could not repeat
their 6- 0 win against Wairarapa this year as Wairarapa,
unfortunately, could not field a team.
The season finished with the Hawke’s Bay Inter-Secondary Schools’ Competition, held in the Rodney Green
Event Centre in Napier over two weeks. This event was
not restricted to the school’s inter-school teams and a
number of students took up the opportunity to play.
Only five boys were entered into the singles tournament. Two of our German exchange students did very
well. Tim Friedrichs won the Boys’ B-Grade Singles title
whilst fellow German exchange student,
Jonathan Strenzke, won the Boys’ B-Grade Plate Final.
Badminton Senior A Boys
Back Row: Ice Boonyung, Mrs L. Baker (Coach)
Front Row: Christopher Meekin, Kevin Gee, Ben Waddington
I was privileged to accompany twenty six students,
eight of whom were boys, to the doubles event. Although not everyone came away a winner, they all
played to their best ability and represented our school
with pride.
Due to school assessments, both Chris and Ben only
attended the doubles tournament. Unfortunately, the
A-Grade competition was very tough but they played
extremely well. Kevin and Ice decided to play in the
B-Grade and this turned out to be a very good decision
for them in the doubles as they made it through to the
finals.
Tim and Jonathan made an excellent choice
to pair up as they took out the Boys’ B–Grade
Doubles title the following week. The game was
very exciting to watch and could have easily gone
either way with the final score of 33–31 against
fellow school members, Kevin and Ice who took
out the title of Boys’ B-Grade “Runners’ up”.
L Baker