By Hayden Collier
On Wednesday the 23rd of May, Geyser City Squash Club (Rotorua) hosted the Bay of Plenty Secondary Schools (BOPSS) Squash Champs for Divisions 2 and 3. This year there was a lot of keen squash players from secondary schools ranging from Katikati to Taupo. Tauranga Boys’ College had entered 3 pupils into Division 2 for this event, Kody Betham, Alex Armstrong and myself. After an early morning start, us boys headed down to Rotorua in hopes of gold.
When we arrived we had a look at the draws and we, unfortunately, had been split up into divisions of 8, leaving only one of us in with a chance of gold, myself. Our first games were best of 3 sets with each game going to 11, which is a very quick game. We all knew we had to get straight into it. I was first up. After a quick warm up my opponent and I got straight into it. After losing the first set I came back and won the next 2, which meant I won the match 2-1. Next up was Kody Betham. He got off to a great start and won his first game comfortably. Alex Armstrong was the last to play his first-round game and also won comfortably. We all progressed to the championship side of our draws.
Onto the 2nd round games; the games had now been changed to best of 5 sets with each game still going to 11. First up in the 2nd round was Alex. He took the lead early and managed to keep it throughout the game and won 3-0. Kody also did this and won his game as well. I continued the winning streak and won my game. We had all progressed to the Final of our draws.
After a bit of a wait, the finals had approached. Alex and Kody had to battle it off in their final for 8th and 9th and I was going for gold or silver. We hopped on the courts at the same time. After a bit of a warm-up, we got into it. Kody managed to take the lead in his game against Alex and continued to put the pressure on. After a good fight from Alex, Kody won 3-0. Now it was up to me. After a close 1st set (11-9), I managed to keep the pressure on and win the next 2 sets to win the match 3-0. I had won gold, Kody got 8th and Alex got 9th respectively. Even though we had been split up we still got the highest possible placings for our school. Overall, it was a fun, action-packed day with a lot of good squash being played by everyone who was there.
Down below are a few photos of us boys on the squash courts.