Whangamata Area School and Mount Maunganui College have defended their Cranch Cup titles at the New Zealand School Surfing Festival presented by Muriwai Surf School held at Maukatia, Maori Bay, Auckland this week (Wednesday 26th March).
Whangamata Area School Boys surfed their way to victory in a tight battle over Bay of Plenty teams from Mount Maunganui College and Tauranga Boys College with Auckland’s Liston College placing fourth in their first finals appearance at the event.
The last day of the event was played out in tough 1.5m plus waves and light westerly winds which made life challenging for many teams, especially as the tide dropped out in the afternoon.
Whangamata Area School surfed with consistency throughout the two days but saved their best performance for last with a 25.29 heat total out of a possible 50 points.
Whangamata eclipsed Mount Maunganui College on 22.11 points, Tauranga Boys College on 20 points and Liston College on 5.89 points, Liston after being unable to get back to the team tents on time, incurring a 5 point penalty.
“It is sick to win this year and defend our title, we had some awesome support from the wider Academy and our coaches and that means a lot for our team, yeah it feels good to come out on top of all the other schools around the country,” said team captain Manu Roberts.
“The consistency of our surfers was the key to success, teamwork and all doing our jobs, plus getting off to a good start in the final, yeah I reckon we all contributed well. Surfing in a in teams’ format is different to normal events and we adapted to the format well and had a good plan for the entire event,” added Roberts who also noted how good it was to surf in some good sized waves amongst the other surfers who were there to represent their respective schools.
The Whangamata Area School Boys Surfing Team comprised Manu Roberts, Ash Rogers, Lincoln Easton, Harrison Biddle and Jay Tingle.
Mount Maunganui College Girls Surfing Team came up trumps in the best of three heats against their opponents winning two of the three encounters on the final day of the event.
Led by Sage Fritchley, the Bay of Plenty girls went about their work determined to defend their title and in a low scoring final round, they did enough for the win.
“Defending the title with the girls was definitely the cherry on top and it felt really good to lead the Mount this year especially watching everyone surf so good it made me stoked,” said team captain Sage Fritchley.
“Our approach this year was to really work as a team and try to make sure everyone gets some sort of a decent wave. I think if you look at our scores across the heats, every one of our surfers had a decent effort to try to get those top scores. We also tried to be as quick as possible due to the hard paddle out to ensure we were safe from getting any time penalty,” added Frtichley of their team strategy noting the challenging conditions.
Whangamata Area School Girls Team held on for second place after winning the first match up and being led by outstanding performances from Lola Groube. However, they found themselves short of time at their last swing for the title and finished third in the last heat and second overall. Newcomers St Dominics Catholic College finished second in their final encounter thanks to a great start by Ella Robelledo – Withers and third overall while the Bay of Plenty Composite Team finished fourth and Trident High School finished in fifth place.
The festival included a plate round to promote surfing throughout as many schools as possible. The 2025 final comprised two strongholds of Gisborne Boys High School and New Plymouth Boys High School going head-to-head with the latter getting the nod for the win after both had been unexpectedly dumped out of the Cup round on the first day of the event. Opunake High School finished third, backing up their second placing in 2024 and Rosmini College made a finals appearance for the first time and finished in fourth.
Final results
Boy Division
1, Whangamata Area School
2, Mount Maunganui College
3, Tauranga Boys College
4, Liston College
5, Takapuna Grammar
6, Kaipara College
7, Westlake Boys High School
8, Whakatane High School
9, New Plymouth Boys High School
10, Gisborne Boys High School
11, Opunake High School
12, Rosmini College
13, Onewhero Area School
14, Trident High School
15, Papamoa College
16, Rangitoto College
Girls Division
1, Mount Maunganui College
2, Whangamata Area School
3, St Dominics College
4, BOP Composite
5, Trident College
Seventeen schools and a total of 21 teams took part in the inaugural event which was held as part of School Sport New Zealand’s Summer Tournament Week alongside over forty other sports held throughout the country.
Full results from the inaugural New Zealand School Surfing Festival can be viewed here – https://liveheats.com/events/342192.
The Cranch Cup was awarded in honour school surfing stalwart Carol Cranch who instigated the New Zealand school surfing programme in the late 80s with the formation of the Scholastic Championships. Cranch was responsible for the development of numerous top level surfers around the country and was one of the founding promoters of the World Grommet Titles which ultimately morphed into the ISA World Junior Championships.
Further Information
For further information on the 2025 New Zealand School Surfing Festival presented by Muriwai Surf School, please contact Surfing New Zealand’s Ben Kennings on 021 2278732 or email benkennings@surfingnz.co.nz.
Event details
Please visit www.Liveheats.com/SurfingNewZealand for full results from 2025 New Zealand School Surfing Festival pres by Muriwai Surf School.
Imagery
This will be distributed free of charge from each event. Please contact Ben Kennings for further details.
High resolution action images of the surfing will be available to media free of charge.
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Surfing New Zealand are proudly partnered by:
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ACC
NZ Community Trust
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Author: Ben Kennings