Aaron Seivert in NZ U19 basketball champs win

Massive congratulations to Aaron Sievert, who played an integral part in the North Harbour U19 Basketball team who romped to victory at the NZ U19 Basketball Championships in Christchurch over King’s Birthday weekend.

The Year 13 student is the starting point guard on the North Harbour team, and caption of the Northcote College Boys Prem Basketball team.

‘We won all three of our pool games on Saturday pretty convincingly,’ Aaron says. ‘Then we had quarterfinals on the Sunday morning, which we also won pretty convincingly – against Franklin, which is another Auckland region team.

‘Sunday afternoons were the semis – and we played Canterbury, who were last year’s champs. It was the closest game of the tournament for us, but we won by 16 in the end, with a final score of 95-79.’

The finals were played on the Monday. ‘We played Taranaki, and won by 40. There was the national anthem before the game, a DJ who played throughout the game, a dance group performance at half time – and a really packed crowd. It was a fantastic atmosphere! The final score was 102-62.’

Aaron’s been playing for North Harbour since the U11s and is captain of the Northcote College Prem team, which is currently on an unbeaten 7-0 streak.

As to the future, Aaron says: ‘My goal is to get a scholarship to play basketball at a university in the US, and then seeing where in the world that takes me.’