If “punching above your weight” was a measure of success, then the Tikipunga High School volleyball programme certainly provides a reference for this. The small school of 260 secondary school students had both boys and girls teams represented in the top 32 teams for the NZ Secondary School national tournament which catered for 146 entered teams.  Their position in the ranking is not due to good fortune more so due to performance which is well supported by coaching.

The boys’ team is coached by Scott MacDonald who is the school sport assistant and an ex-representative player. Scott’s influence on the team saw them rise to finish 14^th in the honours section which is now their national ranking. The boys, not blessed with tall players, had to develop a strategy to maximise what they were good at and under Scott’s coaching over delivered on their promise. Taking top seed in Northland after a long 5 set final against Te Kapehu Whetu.

The team progressed through the early rounds at the championships making their way to the top 16 where they came up against some of the stronger teams and while making a count of themselves, didn’t have the experience or firepower to effect a result.

Scott indicated the team trained 10 hours per week prior to going to the NZSS tournament. “We needed to work on our speed, positioning and on making the floor ‘sacred’ making it hard for opponents to score points”.  McDonald goes onto say “that worked for the first few games, we had nothing to lose and opponents took us a bit lightly”. 

Being a young team there is still so much enthusiasm to return for next year. “I learned nothing replaces practice but practice on the right things.  The boys attained certain skill level and needed to now consolidate on those skills and set standards at practice that they won’t slip below. We worked on the mental approach of the boys, being positive and trusting their training. This developed a self-realisation that they will take into next year”, says McDonald.

So what do the players think?  Sixteen year olds Karlaus and Ethan, who played an important part of the team articulate their perspective by saying - “I think we did really well considering that we are not a big school. We trained a lot in the week but all the training's we had, was enough because it didn't tire everybody out throughout the following days. The thing we need to work on is our covering of our hitters and keeping momentum – our coach will help us work on that” says Karlaus. 

Meanwhile Ethan goes on to say “the team could of done better, but results we got were mean as and we secured a top 32 spot for next year. The training's that led up to ‘nats’ were mean and gave us a lot of time to improve and hone our skills. We need to crack those fundamentals and learn to effectively side out, clear our heads and focus on the game at hand, this is what our coach told us and now we know why”.