Columba College made it to the final before going down 8-7 to Hamilton Girls' High School, while King's High School was eliminated in the semifinals by eventual winner Hamilton Boys' High School.
For Columba College it was an exceptional effort, the first time it made a final after coming into the tournament with no great hopes and viewing it as a rebuilding year after it had lost some senior pupils last year.
The team was coached by Dayna Turnbull and her father PJ Turnbull.
Columba played Hamilton Girls' in pool play on Friday and lost 8-2 but managed to qualify out of its pool. It then made it through post-section play to take on Mount Albert Grammar in the semifinal, winning that game 6-4 to make it through to the final.
There was little between the sides in the final. Hamilton Girls' had a two-point advantage deep in the second half. Columba scored again but ran out of time to draw the game.
Columba, though, should be well satisfied with its efforts, as it has five year 9 pupils in its team and all of the team will be coming back to school next year.
McKayler Moore, Claudia Carruthers and Meg Sycamore were all selected in the national schools team.
King's High School's previous best at the tournament was fifth in 2013 so it had done well to get up to third.
It did well in pool play and got through to the semifinals where it took on a talented Hamilton Boys' High team.
It lost the semifinal 9-5 to Hamilton but bounced back to beat Christchurch Boys' 13-9 in the third and fourth playoff.
The team was coached by Dan Koni and Taylor Haugh.
King's High School pupils Josh Duff and Tom Pledger were selected in the national side.
St Hilda's Collegiate School finished fifth and had Abbey Johnston and Olivia O'Neill picked in the national schools team.
Most of the players in these teams will turn out for Otago age group teams this weekend at a South Island age group tournament in Christchurch.
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Comments
What a poorly written article. Why is the name of the sport missing not to mention the age range in the competition? Is the ODT trying to inflate the importance of this achievement? Please report the news accurately with all the details needed to understand it correctly. Good on King's and Columba for their achievement in some kind of oval ball sport of teams that have year nines in them.
What an ignorant and unnecessary comment! I hope you don't comment on all articles which are clearly of no relevance to yourself, because that would be a timewaster. "Inflate the importance of this achievement?" This happens to be, if you couldn't work it out, the National secondary schools competition for Touch, so, there is clearly no age range as the requirement is your top school side and also unfortunately the ODT couldn't inflate that any further as this is the premier schools competition in the country, with Dunedin schools recording national placings. Which most with a common sense would have understood, But good for you nonetheless providing that completely unnecessary comment and sarcastic congratulations !