Sport: Alex Hyland takes out Mangere-Otahuhu junior sportswoman of the year
The Mangere Bridge teenager beat off challengers on the strength of her being the New Zealand secondary schools high jump champion and 100m hurdles silver medallist, the Zealand under-18 heptathlon and 100m hurdles champion and high jump silver medallist.
She is also the New Zealand under-20 high jump champion.
Awards co-ordinator Jason McIntosh-Kerr from Counties Manukau Sport says Hyland was the standout performer in her age group.
"Alex is an accomplished athlete and her achievements at the national level made her hard to beat."
McIntosh-Kerr says the judges were blown away by the quality of the fields.
"There three New Zealand champions, 11 New Zealand representatives and teams than were ranked in the top three of their sport and 24 who had represented Auckland and Counties Manukau in their particular sport.
"We expected a high quality field, but we didn't expect this good. The other surprise was the range of sports represented. There was water polo, boxing, Australian Rules and volleyball, besides the more traditional ones like rugby, rugby league and netball."
Siave Togoiu won the boy's under-19 sportsman of the year.
He won it on the strength of his winning the player of the tournament at the inaugural international Condors Sevens and his performances for the Southern Cross Campus 1st XIII which won the school its first New Zealand secondary school's rugby league championship.
Togoiu became the hottest prospect in New Zealand after the tournament and eventually signed with the Blues.
Blues training prevented him from collecting his award.
He would have been doubly surprised with his team of the year award going to his Southern Cross rugby league team for defying the odds and winning the national secondary school title.
They did it the hard way by knocking over 15-time champions St Paul in the semi final and taming three time champions Kelston Boys' High School 16-12 in the grand final.
Viscount School's intermediate girls' cricket team won junior team of the year. The Auckland champions went to the national finals in Christchurch, won five games on the trot only to be beaten in the final by 20 runs.
See side bar for full list of winners.
