Ashburton basketballer Josh Lowe is ready to jet back to America for his second season of college basketball. Photo Jaime Pitt-MacKayAfter a debut season where he was not even expected to get any game time, basketballer Josh Lowe is packing his bags for his second season of college basketball in the United States.

The 6’8” big man is entering his sophmore year at Lee University in Tennessee, and can not wait to get back into action.

“I did a lot better than I expected. I wasn’t actually going to play last year, I was just going to red shirt and it wasn’t going to count as one of my playing years, but they ended up needing me to play and I played quite a bit,” he said.

Given his height, he has found his home at centre, playing a similar game to what he was playing in New Zealand, just at a faster pace.

“It is not too different, but the games are a lot quicker and everyone is really athletic over there,” he said.

“There has been a learning period to begin with, getting used to the speed and getting used to playing with new people.

“Once I started playing more and settled in it was pretty good.”

Lowe played 23 games in his debut season, averaging 8.5 minutes, 2.6 points per game, at a shooting percentage of 59.6 per cent and 1.7 rebounds per game.

Lowe said the game against Montevallo was the highlight of his season. He scored 12 points, scoring six of his seven shots, and grabbing seven rebounds in 19 minutes on the court.

Once back in America, he will not have much time for rest, heading straight back into pre-season build-up, ahead of a tour to the Dominican Republic.

“Part of the degree is doing a cross-cultural experience, but I am exempt from that. But as part of that they take the team on a trip to play basketball and we are going to the Dominican Republic,” he said.

“I am looking forward to seeing how things go and hopefully I can continue to try and improve.”

Lowe said his long-term goal of completing his degree and playing basketball has not changed.

When it comes to lifestyle in Tennessee, Lowe said it is not all cowboy hats and country music, and that he lives a fairly similar lifestyle to when he was in New Zealand.

“I go to school for four hours and then go to basketball practice, I then go home and either do homework or hang out with my team-mates,” he said.

While a one-hour road trip to Christchurch to play basketball was common in New Zealand, Lowe said the travel can be a bit more gruelling in the States.

“If we have two road games in a row we will leave and play Wednesday night, travel Thursday to our next game and then play on the Saturday and travel back straight away and arrive home at about 2am,” he said.

“The closest team we play is about three hours’ travel away and some of the trips are six or seven hours away.”

Lowe has been back in New Zealand for around a month but has not let his game slip, making regular appearances for Team Donkey in the Mid Canterbury A grade competition.

“It is fun to come back and play, especially as there is no pressure to be playing for your position. You just come back to play for fun,” he said.

Not quite at the traditional height of an NBA centre who can stand anywhere between 6’10 and 7 foot, Lowe said a slight position shift to power forward might be where he plays in the future, unless he continues to grow, which he said he would prefer not to.

“I will probably shift to four (power forward) eventually and the coaches talked about me playing there last season and it might happen this season as we have a bit more depth,” he said.

By Jaime Pitt-MacKay © The Ashburton Guardian - 8 June 2019

Heath and Ashlein Lyttle are Mid Canterbury Netball’s father-and-daughter umpiring duo. Photo Erin TaskerFor a 13-year-old to be umpiring at a premier grade level in netball is a pretty impressive feat.

Ashlein Lyttle is doing just that and loving every minute of it, but there is something else that made what she is doing even more special, and that is the fact she is able to umpire those games alongside her dad Heath.

Ashlein only started umpiring last season but quickly found her feet and recently obtained her centre badge meaning she can now umpire in Mid Canterbury Netball’s Thursday night premier grades.

Also on the umpiring roster for the premier grades is Heath, who has been umpiring for the past three seasons after being talked into it by Wendy Hopwood, a stalwart of Mid Canterbury Netball umpiring.

He was a parent supporting Ashlein on the sideline at the time and with a background of softball officiating, which he still undertakes in the summer, he decided to give netball umpiring a go too and has not looked back since.

In fact, in a way, he wished he’d taken it up sooner. He’d have loved to have one day made it as far as umpiring a team like the Silver Ferns, but knew he’d probably started a bit late in life to make it that far.

So he is happy to just make it as far as he could, umpiring to the best of his ability at a local level and taking up tournament opportunities when they arose.

At Queen’s Birthday weekend he was in Nelson with the Mid Canterbury Under-15 netball teams umpiring at the Mainland under-15 tournament.

Ashlein was also there, but as a player, and while she loved umpiring it was playing where she really hoped her future lay.

She is part of the Hampstead C netball team which recently earned promotion from Saturday netball into the Thursday night premier two grade.

“My dream is still to be a Silver Fern, but if that didn’t turn out I would like to be an umpire,” Ashlein said.

When you were refereeing or umpiring any sport, you needed to be tough, and Heath had no doubt his daughter would be up to the challenge when she decided she wanted to give it a go.

Ashlein said the hardest part now that she was moving up through the grades was dealing with people who were a lot older than her, and the fact that not everyone agreed with every call an umpire made.

“I just try not to let it get to me too much because when I do I start questioning myself,” Ashlein said. The first game the Lyttles umpired together was a Saturday game and they didn’t really get time to think about who was on the other side of the court, they were both just focused on the job at hand, which is just the way it should be.

By Erin Tasker © The Ashburton Guardian - 7 June 2019

A big crowd took to the streets last week for teacher strikes with the threat of more to come. Photo Matt MarkhamMore than 350 Year 9 students around the Ashburton District had an unexpected holiday yesterday as the first round of rolling strikes by secondary school teachers kicked off.

In support of their stalled negotiations over wages and conditions, secondary teachers across New Zealand have followed up last week’s strike action with a series of rostered home days for students that will see classes withdrawn one day each week for a set year group.

The rolling strikes started yesterday with Year 9 and will be followed with a Year 10 rostered home day next week.

Ashburton College principal Ross Preece is keeping his fingers crossed there will be some movement in the negotiations before the strike days start impacting on Year 11 to 13 students.

While he supports the teachers in their claims, Preece said he’s concerned at the loss of class time for senior students.

“We’re full of hope because that the ministry has said ‘we need to talk about this’ is helpful,” he said.

There was absolutely no doubt that something had to change, if not salaries then conditions around providing support in classrooms because there were growing numbers of higher needs students in schools, Preece said.

“Unfortunately what isn’t growing is teacher numbers.”

That there were only 11 trainee teachers currently with physics as a speciality demonstrated very clearly the depth of the problem, he said.

The college employs two physics teachers and is one of more than 350 secondary schools in New Zealand, most of whom employ specialist physics teachers.

The college, like most schools around New Zealand, was struggling to fill vacancies and was only able to ensure there was a teacher in front of each class through the good will of retired teachers making a temporary return to the classroom, Preece said.

“We have two or three now but that’s not sustainable long term.

“These are very capable teachers who are coming out of retirement to fill gaps and we’re very fortunate to find staff willing to do this.”

There was a large pool of teachers who had exited the profession, but for those who may want to re-enter after letting registration lapse there was little incentive, with six months retraining at a cost of around $6000 required, he said.

For teachers in the profession, the 10 per cent pay rise over three years on offer might address inflation, but it did nothing to address the 10-year lag where salaries had been almost stationary, Preece said.

“Even if they came up with a plan for the future, that would be something.

“Teachers don’t like being on strike because it’s impacting on their students, but there needs to be some sort of indication from the Government.”

The rostered home days are scheduled for June 11, Year 10, June 26, Year 11 and July 2, Year 12.

By Sue Newman © The Ashburton Guardian - 5 June 2019