The Junior Boys North Island Volleyball Championships were held at Waitakere Stadium, Auckland at the start of December 2010. Our Western Heights Boys team were ranked second going into the tournament after the qualification process.

The boys went through pool play unbeaten, winning three games on the first day and were placed in a second round pool with some tough opposition. The boys then topped their second round pool to qualify for the quarter finals. In the quarter finals the team played aggressive volleyball, taking care of last year’s champs Trident High School. Next up was the semi-final where the team met Rangitoto College. Again the boys stepped up to the plate and played accurate and committed volleyball to win the match in two sets, meaning they secured their place in the final. Their opponents in the final would be De La Salle College from Auckland, who had beaten Tauranga Boys College in the other semi-final.

A huge and noisy crowd gathered to watch the final. The Heights boys came back from 4 points down at one stage to run over the De La Salle team in the first set, convincingly winning 25-18. In the second set the opposition upped the ante and scraped home 25-22 to take the set, so the final went to the deciding third and final set. The score was close but Heights pulled away to a 12-8 lead in the race to 15. De La Salle mounted a come back to tie the game 14-14. Their server hit the ball out of court to give Heights match point 15-14. The crowd went wild and but didn’t put off Jacob Rakei as he served for the match. The serve went in and the ball came back to Heights with Zechariah Ropitini hitting the winning point to give Heights the Championship.

Talor Kahu was named in the Tournament Team and as Most Valued Player for the tournament. Also named in the tournament team were Tiaan Flavell and Vitor Esteves.

The team offers a big thank you to Mr Morrison who spent countless hours getting the team ready to compete at the North Island Champs

We now hope to see many of our new Year 9 boys taking up the challenge of playing volleyball and practising in the gym at intervals and lunchtimes