Melville Intermediate - 2012 Highlights

Over the next few weeks we will be looking back at some of the highlights from 2012 selected by our students.  This recount is written about the NZAIMS tournament, which is the national sporting tournament (New Zealands largest) for Intermediate Students held each year in Tauranga.  Melville Intermediate has entered Girls Basketball for the past four years finishing in the top four spots for four consecutive years.  This is the recount about out 2012 efforts that was published in 'Reflections' the Melville Intermediate School Magazine

Our first Tauranga NZAIMS Game of 2012 was against the Knox School from Melbourne Australia.  It was the first time that any Australian Schools had been competing in the NZAIMS games and both teams were nervous before we played.  There was only one point in the game at half time and they led 15-16.  In the second half it was really close as well, and unfortunately they just beat us 32-34.  We knew we could still make the quarter finals but to do that we would have to win our other pool games.

On Monday afternoon we played Te Wharekura o Tauranga Moana, this was a much stronger game for us and we beat them 41-10.  On Tuesday we played Ross Intermediate who were unbeaten and defeated them 34-9 and then we played Bethlehem College in our last pool game and beat them 55-6.  This qualified us for the quarter finals which we were very pleased with.

Wednesday was quarter finals and semi-finals day.  We played against Tauranga Intermediate in the Quarter Finals.  They were unbeaten and are the largest Intermediate in New Zealand, as well as one of the tournament host schools.   The game was tied at 16-16 at half time and we were able to pull away in the second half winning 30-23.  This is the third time in four years that we’ve knocked Tauranga out of the competition.

That had qualified us for the semi-finals when we had to take on Kaitoa Middle School.  We’d lost to them by a point in a warm up tournament in Rotorua in June, however they were winning every game at the NZAIMS tournament by 60 to a 100 points and looked very strong.  The game was close until half way through the first half when they started to pull away.  We tried to get back into the game but they had too much of a lead and Kaitoa won 30-47.  They went onto win the final.

That left us playing for 3rd and 4th and because of the other results we had to play The Knox School from Melbourne again.  We were very excited for a chance of getting medals and also happy to have a chance to try and beat the Knox who had beaten us in the first game.  This time the result wasn’t close and we beat them 38-22 meaning that Melville Intermediate came 3rd in the tournament out of 18 teams.

Thank you to everyone who played in the team this year: Kobe, Amethyst, Praise, Tia, Jess, Lonita, Anna, Maia, Arahia and Te Mahine.  Special thank you to Chareena (Kobe’s Mum) for her awesome coaching.