Day Two in the books for the National Beach Handball Championship for 2023 and we saw the best of New Zealand’s Stock of Beach Handballers play outstandingly in adverse conditions. The rain really came down but this didn’t take away from the quality beach Handball. Due to the adverse weather and seeing as the draw worked out as such, the last round of found robin matches for both the Men’s and Women’s would determine placing in the tournament.
The Third vs. Fourth Playoff in the Men’s was a very closely fought affair, between the Masters of Spinjitsu and The Pekapeka Men with the Pekapeka Men coming out on top.
The next game played on the day was the women’s final’s between the Pekapeka Women and the Otago Toroa in a Defensively dominated affair that the Toroa fighting through the weather and getting revenge from the first round of games and winning the final in two sets. The Toroa Goalkeeper, Kristina Hames, was named both Most Valuable Player and Most Valuable Goalkeeper in a dominant display over the two day tournament. Kira Marpert from the Toroa also was dominant as the Top Goal Scorer with no other player within 10 of her tally.
Kristina Hames, Most Valuable Womens Goalkeeper and Player
Kira Marpert, Women’s Top Scorer
The next games played were the Final North vs. South Games and The North Men and South Women completed clean sweeps in the series in very closely fought matches.
The Final Match of the day was the Barad-dûr Beach Bros matching off against last years Champions, the Parrots Men. The Final was an extremely close affair with only a goal separating the sides throughout the whole match. Inevitably the Match went to penalties and the experience of the Parrots took the side to victory. Thomas Roxburgh of the Parrots showed this experience and the ability to make big time plays in big time moments taking the Most Valuable Goalkeeper. Paul Ireland from the Barad-dûr Beach Bros took out both Most Valuable Player and used his last penalty to take the Top Goal Scorer from Max Brookes of the Parrots by 1 goal.
Thomas Roxburgh, Most Valuable Men’s Goalkeeper
Paul Ireland, Men’s Top Scorer and Most Valuable Player
That concludes the 2023 National Beach Handball Nation Championships, Thanks to all the people who travelled, who helped with setup, packdown, benched and refereed. And a HUGE shout out to Jun Tanlayco and Aaron Bell to ensure that the games were livestreamed and photographed, keeping a record of Beach Handball in New Zealand.
All Match Results, Statistics and the schedule are on our Events page.