Cornwall Junior Squash News
SW League - U17 Results
Match report – February 22nd, Torquay, Devon
Cornwall v Devon v Glos B. v Avon.
For their last event of the 2008/09 season, the Cornish team travelled the relatively short journey to Torquay to battle against the strongest teams in the S.W. league.
The day began badly with all four boys losing their opening matches. Ben, first to play was drawn against a hard hitting opponent who took the first comfortably. The next three games were much closer affairs, being won by only 2 or 3 points either way. Ben was clearly the better player but lost the match through a greater number of unforced errors than the margins of victory! Next to play, Tony Pepperell, again slow to start, lost by the same margin. Tony, fighting as ever, would have definitely won this encounter if he could have played as he did later in the day. Following Tony, Joel Brickell took to the court and was clearly not firing on all cylinders. Once again the Cornish player was slow to start and waited to the very last match of the day to produce the quality he is known for. The two girls in the team, Katrina Thomas and Jess Vallance, had byes at their positions though both did have warm up games with extra boys brought along to fulfil the fixture. Last to play, Chris Lawrance was drawn against the highly ranked Konrad Tyma. This is the calibre of opponent that Chris needs to play to raise his game. Though losing 3-1, Chris’ patience was often rewarded with forced errors from his opponent but too often, he lacked the killer punch to end rallies. The Cornish team narrowly lost this match 20-18.
The next fixture brought Cornwall and Glos B together. This was a weaker team than was fielded a year ago and this reflected in the match result. 23 – 13 to Cornwall.
For the second time, Jess had a bye but was given the opportunity of playing an extra boy to fulfil the fixture. As in her first match, Jess was always playing “catch up” with the stronger player but battled all the way up to the last point, giving her all. At 5 in the playing order, Katrina quickly overcame her opponent in ruthless fashion to give the team another 4 points for the loss of none. Both Tony and Joel followed suit with strong displays of strength and touch, and the match was soon won. It was unfortunate for Ben to be drawn against an opponent playing out of order because of an enforced layoff. Ben fought tooth and nail only losing by small margins in all games. The third in particular, could have been won if only 3 unforced errors had not been made. At 1, Chris lost the first game heavily but continued to fight and eventually took the third. The fourth was not to follow but still a good result for the team to beat Glos.
Finally, after a long day, the team were thrown into the “Lions Den”. Devon had fielded a formidable team down through the order. First on, Jess performed wonderfully and came within a whisker of a win. Though narrowly losing 3-2, her performance was a credit to the other results that would follow. Katrina had to be vigilant in her match against an accomplished player from Plymouth. Holding her discipline and concentration, she brushed aside her opponent for a 3-0 win. The boys to follow, apart from Chris, had brutally hard matches against strong ranked players. Ben fought as if his life depended on it and secured a valuable game to post on the scoresheet. Joel almost stole a win against one of Chris’ adversaries, Connor Andrews. A wonderful effort by the quality player!! But Tony provided the shock of the day. 2-0 down to the wonderfully unorthodox Craig Stevens, he turned the game around, almost breaking his opponent’s spirit in the process. A fantastic 3-2 win. At this point, the teams were level. It was down to Chris to pull off the impossible – to beat the highly ranked top 10 player, Eddie Shannon. The challenge was one of Biblical proportions. Sadly, in this case, David was crushed by Goliath, but not without putting up a fight and drawing a few beads of sweat from the Devon Inter County player. Match result 24 – 19 to Devon.
This ends another good season for the newly formed U17 mixed team. This will sadly be the last time though for both Chris and Tony who will be out of the age group next season. They have both been wonderful servants to the Cornish team and will be badly missed next year.
And a big thank you to Jess, Katrina, Rio, Joel and Ben who will come back fitter, stronger and faster next year!!!!! And a further Big thank you to Dave Fairclough for his support at all the events..
Jerry
Written by on 2009-02-25 23:04:58
