Team of the Year nominees

Thirty-one nominees have been put forward, across five categories, for the 55th annual Marlborough Sports Awards.

Although the ever-popular awards dinner will not be held this year due to COVID restraints, judging will still take place and the category winners, plus overall Sportsperson of the Year trophy recipient, will be announced in the Marlborough Weekly and on the Marlborough App, on Tuesday, November 16.

The Marlborough App, along with Sport Tasman and Blenheim Round Table, are the main organisers of the awards.

Today we profile the eight nominees in the final category, the Team of the Year, sponsored by WK Advisors and Accountants.

First up are lawn bowlers Maurice Symes, Craig MacDonell. The seasoned performers represented Marlborough at the 2020-21 National Bowls Championships, staged at several venues in Central Otago. Maurice, from the Blenheim club, and Craig, from Riverside, joined forces with Te Puke’s John Gray and Steve Beel of Mount Maunganui to form an unstoppable composite four. They prevailed in a nail-biting decider over 18 ends, beating Michael Kernaghan, Kelvin Scott, Shannon McIlroy and Lance Pascoe, all national representatives, 20-19. This was Symes’ second NZ crown, coming 36 years after he won the pairs, while it was McDonnell’s first. The event attracted one of the largest turn-outs for many years.

Marlborough Boys’ College rowers Dylan Burton and Fred Vavasour combined to form a Blenheim club men’s pair which picked up a gold medal at the national champs in February. They then went on to win a silver medal for Marlborough Boy’s College in the boys’ under-18 pair at the NZ Secondary Schools Championships in March. As a result of these outstanding performances Fred was selected into the NZ under-19 men’s eight and Dylan gained selection into the South Island under-18 eight.

Squash Marlborough’s nomination for Team of Year is the Marlborough Boys’ College A team who picked up third place in the New Zealand Secondary Schools national championships held in Tauranga in August. The team of Tom Marshall, Chris Hebberd, Jack Frisken, Bryn Woolley, captain Matthew Judd, reserve Dylan Guillemot and coach/manager Nic Dann combined to produce the best finish a MBC team has ever achieved at this tournament. The New Zealand Secondary Schools National Championships is the largest squash tournament held in New Zealand each year with around 32 boys’ teams and 20 girls’ teams in attendance.