It is not too often that members of the men’s or women’s senior national teams play at the Schick Secondary Schools National Championships, but this year we have two such players.
Last year, Charlisse Leger-Walker, coming off her impressive Tall Ferns debut at the Gold Coast Commonwealth Games, took home MVP honours at the Schick Champs after leading St Peter’s School, Cambridge to the ‘AA’ Girls title.
Leger-Walker returns again this year having just come back from another Tall Ferns campaign, this time in India at the FIBA Asia Cup.
Taine Murray made his debut for the MBO Tall Blacks in Sydney against Canada back in August, having caught the eye of national team Head Coach Paul Henare at last year’s champs. He was an integral part of Rosmini Colleges’ successful ‘AA’ Boys Championship defence.
In addition to Leger-Walker and Murray there are a whole host of New Zealand age-group internationals displaying their talents at the 2019 Schick Champs.
Sam Mennenga (Westlake Boys’ High School) and Jaga Mete (Auckland Grammar School) were on the world stage with the Junior Tall Blacks at the FIBA Under 19 World Cup held in Greece back in July.
The trio of Ashlee Strawbridge (Rangi Ruru Girls’ School), Tayla Dalton (Carmel College) and Leger-Walker had an exceptional result at the 3×3 Under 18 World Cup in Mongolia in June where they were silver medalists.
Also, on the 3×3 trail were Emme Shearer, Jordyn Maddix (Westlake Girls’ High School) and Ella Bradley (St Peter’s) who reached the quarter-finals at the Under 18 Asia Championships in Malaysia.
At the men’s tournament was Shalom Broughton (St Kentigern College), Marvin Williams-Dunn (Rosmini) and Thomas Webley (Cashmere High).
Both the New Zealand Men’s and Women’s teams won silver at the recent FIBA Under 17 Oceania Championships in New Caledonia.
Members of the women’s team in attendance this week are Rochelle Fourie (Manukura), Hannah Matehaere (Otago Girls’ High School), Jess Moors (Westlake), Caitlin O’Connell (Sacred Heart Girls’ College, New Plymouth) and Ashlee Strawbridge (Rangi Ruru), doubling up after her exploits with the U18 3×3 team.
Nine members of the Men’s team are here in Palmerston North. The pair of Reihana Maxwell-Topia and Sean Murphy are playing for Rosmini, with Campbell Atkinson (Westlake), Finn Lally (St John’s College), Connor Ngan (Auckland Grammar), Alex McNaught (St Kent’s), Harry Payne (Rangitoto College), Ezekiel Stallworth (Scots College) and Mac Stodart (St Andrew’s College) also on display.
Basketball New Zealand recently announced the Men’s and Women’s squads to prepare for the FIBA Under 16 Asia Championships and many of those players are competing at this week.
In the Women’s squad are Reese Anderson (Hamilton Girls’ High Schol), Riana Matiseni and Zaaliyah Kailahi-Fulu (both St Mary’s College, Ponsonby), Hineaupounamu Nuku (Te Kura Kōkiri), Alana Paewai and Jayzelee Waihi (St Peter’s), Lilly Parke (Baradene College), Melike Samia (Napier Girls’ High School) plus Breeje Schuler (Te Aroha College).
Finally, the Under 16 Men’s squad includes Zach Riley, Ethan Skelton and Tautoko Wynyard (Rangitoto), Levick Kerr and Kazlo Evans (St Kent’s), Junior De Young (Te Aroha), Tafara Gapare (Scots), Ben Gold (Tawa), Akiva McBirney-Griffin (St John’s) Gregory Rodger (Shirley Boys’ High School), Ezra Smiler (Hamilton Boys’ High School), Sataan Tawera (Mt Albert Grammar) and Jett Thompson (Westlake).
The 48 players named above are some of the most talented of the 800+ players striving for success at the 2019 Schick National Championships.
TOURNAMENT INFORMATION
The draw, pools and future live stream timings can be found here.
LIVE STREAM
Four games are being live streamed every day on the Fly Palmy Arena court. These can be watched on either our website or Facebook page.
ONLINE RESULTS
Results from today’s fixtures will be updated after each round and can be found at the link below.
‘A’ Tournament Dates: September 30 – October 3 – click here
‘AA’ Tournament Dates: September 30 – October 5 – click here
TICKET PRICES
Daily Pass
- $5 Adults per day (18 years and older)
- $3 Child per day (all children 14 years and younger must be accompanied by an adult)
- $15 Family per day (two adults and two children)
- FREE 5 years and under
Weekly Pass
- $20 Adult weekly pass
- $15 Child weekly pass
- $52 Family weekly pass (two adults and two children)
For more go to www.nz.basketball and Basketball New Zealand’s social media channels: @BasketballNZ Facebook, Twitter, Instagram.
