Success for the Under 17s against Cumbria

Despite howling gales, fallen trees, hail and sleet, the Under 17s made it over to Appleby for their Shires League match with Cumbria on Saturday. Both teams were slightly understrength and were also one girl short, so they were only able to play 15 of the 20 scheduled games. But the result was a resounding clean-sweep for Northumberland.
Starting with the mixed doubles, the partnerships of Sarah Wilson & Ashraf Alam and Lexie Howard & Jonathan Elsdon had good two-end wins, the former coming back well from a very tight first end. Emily Harrison & Gyan Chadda lost a close first end but turned the tables strongly winning the last two ends, both to 9 points. Six of the seven singles matches were won by Northumberland without recourse to a third end. In his game, David Murray took a very close first end 22-20: but he was pegged back to 11 in the second before coming back in really fine style to take the third end again to 11.
In the boys’ doubles, Alam & Elsdon combined extremely well to take both their games with relative ease. The second-string pair of Chadda & Murray had to work harder for their wins but again they took them in two ends, rounding off with a 21-15, 21-19 success over the Cumbrians’ top pair. Only one scoring girls’ doubles game could be played and this gave the easiest win of the day to the Wilson/ Harrison pairing by 21-11, 21-4.
Very well done to the team!