With one round of section play to go, three teams have already booked places in the semifinals.
North Harbour, with five points and 21.5 games, and Bay of Plenty, with 4.5 points and 18 games, top section two.
Third-placed Manawatu-Wanganui, on three points, is too far back to challenge.
In section one, Canterbury has five points and 19.5 games leaving Auckland and Waikato left to fight it out for the vacant berth this morning.
North Harbour yesterday had two 5-0 wins, at the expense of Manawatu-Wanganui in the morning and Wellington in the afternoon.
Bay of Plenty squeaked home against Wellington but beat Manawatu-Wanganui 4-1 in the afternoon.
Canterbury downed Waikato and Auckland yesterday while Otago's woes continued as it finished at the bottom of section two with no points and 4.5 games.
Otago will play Tasman, which finished bottom of section one, tomorrow to decide 13th and 14th places.
Otago finished third in the South Island championships in November, but a difficult draw against six North Island teams proved Otago's downfall.
In round five, No 3 Tracey Storer posted her first win at the expense of Taranaki's Rochelle Keegan while Annabel Evans notched a half with Melanie Wilson.
However, in the afternoon Northland romped home 5-0.
Three games went to the final hole in the morning but the Otago players failed to make pars at the death.
No 1 Jo Hicks-Beach was simply outplayed by Holly Winter while Abigael Crawford was more competitive turning one ahead of Tyla Winter.
However, on the back nine Crawford found three bunkers which resulted in three losses and a loss on the 16th green.
Storer was 3-down with five holes to play but won three of the next four holes to be square playing the final hole.
Her opponent, Rochelle Keegan, duffed her drive off the 18th tee gifting Storer the hole and the match.
No 4 Evans turned one behind Taranaki's Melanie Wilson and birdied the 17th hole to get back to square which remained the score when she chipped and two putted to halve the hole.
Once again, Susan Greig started slowly losing two of the first three holes and never got into the lead against Joanne McDonald.
