Easter Junior Squash at the Northumberland Club
The Northumberland Club hosted the Northumberland Junior Open Squash Championships over the Easter weekend of the 11\12 April.
A total of 64 entries in the Boys\Girls u19,15 &11 categories with the boys u15 competition attracting 30 players from Northumbria,Yorkshire,Durham & Cleveland,Lancashire and Cumbria. Both the top seeds Luke Mabbott (D&C) and Elliott Park(N’umbria) eased through to the u15 final and although Luke won 3-0, the first game was extremely close at 16-14 with Elliott moving Luke to all corners of the court. However Luke’s retrieving and excellent attacking drop shots finally took the sting out of Elliott’s powerful hitting to win the title. The Boys u19 final was between the No 1 seed Robert Harrison( D&C) and Daniel Hockborn( D&C) and the match proved to be a real cracker. Daniel raced into a 2-0 lead and looked well in command but Robert tightened his game and won the next 2 to level the score at 2 all. Both players started to tire in the fifth after some long stamina stretching rallies but at the end Daniel kept his composure to win the decider 11-9.
The Girls u15 final was contested by 2 of the Northumberland Club’s top junior players namely Maria Bainbridge and Jayne Oswald. A 3-0 win for Maria was by no means easy as Jayne put up some stiff opposition but Maria’s speed of movement and excellent shot variety won the day.
The Girls u19 final was between the top seeds Rachael Chadwick (Cheshire) and Hannah Cliff (N’umbria). Hannah found the match extremely tough with Rachael always firmly in control and she duly won 3-0.
There were 12 entries in the u11 category with 9 boys and 3 girls. Using a round robin format in 2 groups of 6, each player had 5 games with the top 2 players in each group progressing to a semi-final and final stage. The overall winner was Mark Richmond (Warks) who beat Oliver Walls (D&C) by 2 games to 1 in a close final. The girls u11 winner was Charlotte Fish (Yorks) with Laura Neil (N’umbria) taking 2nd place.
The winners of the various plate competitions are listed below;
Boys u19 – Dan Ward
Boys u15 – Stephen Twaddle
Girls u15 – Rebecca Symmons
A special thanks to the competition sponsors namely Newcastle City Council, Woodsports and Mercedes Benz- Sunderland.
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