The team, coach and leading player have all made the list of finalists for the annual Otago Sports Awards on June 9.
The Nuggets won the 2022 National Basketball League title. They shocked most pundits to produce a five-game winning streak at the end of the campaign and claim their first full league title.
They also won the NBL Showdown in 2020, but that was a rejigged tournament missing three of the league’s heavyweights. Last year’s win has been seen as more "legit" by the basketball community.
The judging panel of Sport Otago chief executive James Nation, Te Pūkenga deputy chief executive Megan Gibbons, radio producer Rowena Duncum, Otago Rugby Football Union game development manager Michael Smith and Otago Daily Times sports editor Hayden Meikle will have a tough time settling on winners.
The Otago men’s hockey team has also made the final of three categories following a historic year.
Otago beat Wellington 4-2 in the final of the National Hockey Championship to claim the title for the first time since the tournament was established in 1908.
It is up for team of the year alongside the Southern Bush Pigs, who won the under-85kg national title with a 21-19 win over the Auckland University Debt Collectors in Hamilton in September.
They will go head to head with Nuggets centre Sam Timmins, who was crucial in the golden run in 2022, and Nuggets coach Brent Matehaere, who helped engineer the team’s success.
Freeskier Ben Harrington is the other finalist in the sportsman of the year category, while gun snowboarder Zoi Sadowski-Synnott’s coach Sean Thompson is a finalist in the coach of the year category.
You can probably go ahead and ink in Sadowski-Synnott for sportswoman of the year.
The queen of the slopes continues to dominate women's snowboarding in slopestyle, big air and freeride.
She finished on the podium in every event she started in over the last year. She is the X Games slopestyle gold medallist and finished in the silver medal position at the snowboard slopestyle world championships.
She also won the Supreme Halberg Award this year.
Silver Ferns and Steel midcourter Kate Heffernan and ski racer Alice Robinson are the other finalists.
There are some very good junior sportspeople coming through as well.
Skier Adam Hall, Oamaru deaf squash player Emma Paton and bowler Pam Walker are finalists in the para team/athlete of the year award.
Lucia Georgalli (snowboarding), Catherine Lund (athletics) and Rosie Falcous (surf life-saving) are up for the girls emerging talent award, while Henry Kirk (rowing), Luke Harrold (freeskiing) and Hamish Faulks (touch) contest the boys emerging talent award.
Emerging talent team finalists are the Otago Boys' High School touch team, the Columba College rowing quad, and the Cutting Edge synchronised ice skating group.
Allys Clipsham (football), Chris Gaffaney (cricket) and James Doleman (rugby) are finalists for official of the year.
Two other awards, services to sport and innovation in sport, will be awarded on the night.
The event will be held at the Otago Polytechnic Te Pūkenga Hub. Former Black Fern Kendra Cocksedge is the guest speaker.
Otago Sports Awards
The finalists
- Sportswoman: Kate Heffernan (netball), Zoi Sadowski-Synott (snowboarding), Alice Robinson (ski racing).
- Sportsman: Ben Harrington (freesking), Sam Timmins (basketball), Nick Ross (hockey).
- Junior sportswoman: Ruby Andrews (freeskiing), Eden Carson (cricket), Erika Fairweather (swimming).
- Junior sportsman: Luca Harrington (freeskiing), James Gardner (cycling), Campbell Wright (biathlon).
- Team: Nuggets (basketball), Otago men’s hockey, Southern Bush Pigs (rugby).
- Coach: Brent Matehaere (basketball), Sean Thompson (snowboard), Dave Ross (hockey).
