Lele in NZ team at Asian Youth Champs
Te Aorere (Lele) Wharawhara is about to match up with the best at the U17 Asian Youth Women’s Volleyball Championships.
The Matamata College student will be the only Waikato player in the New Zealand team at the competition.
Lele , Year 12, plays middle, and was well known for her powerful attack, but it was a skill she has had to work hard to achieve.
She started playing in Year 9 and in her first two years helped her Matamata junior team bring home gold in the Waikato Junior Secondary Schools Volleyball tournaments.
Originally a netballer, she set her sights on volleyball as a way to earn school sports trophies.
It worked. She was named Ma¯ori Junior Sportswoman and Junior Sportswoman in Years 9 and 10.
Her focus shifted during a training session when she saw Year 13 student Caitlin Langlands play volleyball.
She said she knew she wanted to achieve more in sport than just winning trophies.
‘‘I saw how well they could play and I thought, damn, I want to smack that ball that hard, I want to play like that.
‘‘But the first time I hit it, I was like, I can’t do that.
‘‘I started to train by myself, hitting the ball against the wall at home, until I finally got it.’’
School morning tea and lunchtimes were dedicated to training and watching online videos of previous games to improve performance.
Due to her hard work, she was named MVP at the 2016 Waikato Junior Volleyball Tournament, an accolade she shared with a fel- low team mate and also selected for the senior Waikato tournament team in 2017.
For three years she had been named in the U15 Waikato volleyball team, and last year also played in the U17 Waikato volleyball team, part of National Interprovincial Championships.
From that event she was again selected in the tournament team.
She set herself a goal of representing New Zealand and in the not so distant future, a scholarship.
‘‘That’s where I am now, in the New Zealand team, representing Matamata and Waikato, which is quite cool.’’
Matamata College volleyball coach Andrew Kilham said Lele’s ‘‘x-factor’’ was her powerful attack and positive attitude on the court.
‘‘She hits the ball really, really hard. It would be scary to be on the receiving end of it,’’ he said.
The New Zealand U17 team will play in a warm up tournament in South East Asia and then on to the U17 Asian Youth Women’s Champs in Thailand.