High School pair lift Karapiro gold - March 2016
Matthew Wright and Nathan Luff won gold in U18 LW double.
Gold, Silver and Bronze for WHS rowing at the North Island Secondary School Champs at Lake Karapiro on Saturday 19 March.
Matthew Wright and Nathan Luff won gold in U18 LW double, Ally Bennett won silver U17 single and Nathan Luff won bronze in U18 single.
Great results heading into Maadi Cup in two weeks.
Wanganui Chronicle article on 21/3/16 read as follows:
WANGANUI High School rowers grabbed the coveted gold while Wanganui Collegiate earned multiple medals in 20 minutes during an exciting final day of the Aon NZ North Island Secondary School Championships at Lake Karapiro yesterday.
Matching up against more than 95 schools who sent rowers to the championships, WHS finished with a medal of each colour, highlighted by the boys' Under 18 lightweight doubles sculls victory of Nathan Luff and Matthew Wright. The two, who were bronze medallists together at last year's Maadi Cup, won the A final in 6m 56.54s, three seconds ahead of the Glendowie College (Auckland) crew, with St Peter's School (Waikato) in third.
Luff also won a bronze medal in the Under 18 single sculls, finishing in 7m 24.19s for the A final, just under a second behind the silver medallist from Cambridge High School, although the gold was comfortably claimed by the Whakatane HS entrant by nine seconds.
WHS's Ally Bennett won silver in the girls' Under 17 single sculls, finishing in 8m 27.29s, two seconds ahead of the Sacred Heart Girls competition in third,with Aotea College the winner (8m 24.88s).
Collegiate's rowers brought home two silvers and three bronze medals - including a run of winning three medals in consecutive A finals. The school claimed both the girls' Under 16 and boys' novice Under 18 silver medals. The girls' crew was Maddie McLean, Maggie O'Leary-Noyer, Laura Francis, Bethany Torr, Catherine Pearce, Jamie Harris, He Maari Simon, Ella Goddard and Anna Gower-James. Their 6m 51.37s A final time was ahead of Wellington Girls College and four seconds behind the winning St Peter's eight.
The boys were Jonny Matthews, Luke Gemmell, Tyler Guinea, Jack McLeod, Toby Lennox, Finn Cleary, Camden Abernethy, Harry Davis, and Elin Cao. They made a 6m 15.77s time, nearly three seconds faster than St Peter's College but unable to reel in Sacred Heart (6m 11.26s).
Collegiate's first medal of the champs was the bronze from Matthews and Lennox in the boys' Under 18 novice doubles sculls, with their 7m 18.30s time being 5-6 seconds behind the leading crews of winner St Peter's and runners-up St Johns.
The girls' Under 18 lightweight coxed four got bronze with Sarah Byam, Alice Gray, Sophie Black, Katelin Bartlett, and Emma Whight in 7m 30.71s, behind Westlake Girls High and the winning St Kentigern's crew (7m 25.88s).
And the last Collegiate medal was the bronze from the boys' Under 15 coxed four, with Jack Norman, Blake Hogan, Hamish Bielby, Benjamin Strang, and Jack Monckton's time of 7m 29.29s, with Mt Albert Grammar (7m 28.74s) second, and Auckland Grammar first(7m 26.83s).
