Having lost three pre-Christmas matches to cancellations, our Under 16s began their Shires League campaign this weekend with an excellent 12-8 win over Yorkshire 2. Manager Karen Davison was delighted to have support from county coach Martin Fagan and Richard Taylor, plus a great group of parents and grand-parents. She was even more delighted with the performance of her team, who were:
Amy Ward, Charlotte Graham, Ellen Davison & Lucy Dodd and Dominic Wilson-Baker, James Dodd, Sonny Ho & Tim Bodani.
Yorkshire looked to have brought quite a strong team with them, considering they were the second string, but we got off to a very encouraging start winning two of the four mixed doubles. And Ellen & Dom got very close to a third win, only losing to 17 in the third end. Tim & Amy and Sonny & Lucy both scored two-end victories.
The singles went even better with both the boys and the girls taking three of their four matches to give Northumberland an 8-4 lead. Six of the eight singles being won against a Yorkshire team – quite an achievement! There were excellent wins for Tim and James over regular, strong competitors on the BE age group circuit. Sonny in his first Shires match had a good 21-18, 21-11 win. Lucy and Ellen added two more and Amy fought back strongly after losing the second end to take the third 21- 15.
The level doubles were shared. There was an excellent 24-22, 21-14 win for Tim & James in the top match, backed up by strongly by both girls’ partnerships of Ellen & Amy and Charlotte& Lucy.
Very well done – it was a great team effort. Their next match will also be at home, on Sunday 20th January, against Cumbria.