Shakira Baker. PHOTO/GETTY IMAGES
Commonwealth Games
Former Greytown School and Wairarapa College student Shakira Baker grabbed a Commonwealth Games gold medal on Sunday as the New Zealand women’s sevens rugby team beat Australia 17-12 in a tense final.
Baker featured in the second half of the game, which went to extra time.
She had earlier scored a try in the 26-5 win over England in the semi-final.
Baker added the Commonwealth Games gold to her Olympic silver medal from the Rio Olympic Games, where the ‘Sevens Sisters’ were beaten 24-17 by Australia in the gold medal match.
On Saturday, Dalefield men’s hockey player-coach Dane Lett had to settle for a silver medal after the Kiwi men’s hockey team went down 2-0 to Australia.
As expected it was a tight battle between the transtasman rivals, with a strong second quarter from Australia seeing them score twice to take a two-goal advantage into halftime.
The Kiwis created their share of chances in the second spell and came close to scoring on several occasions but were shut down by the world No 1 team.
