Archive News
Hard inter-county battle for Norfolk U15s
Norfolk's U15s Boys squash team played host to Leicestershire, Buckinghamshire and Nottinghamshire in the final round of the Inter Counties tournament at EAT&SC in Norwich on Sunday January 27.
Following the withdrawal through injury of No.1 string Luke Perry, things were always going to be tough with all of the squad having to play up a position. Nevertheless, Norfolk produced some close ties and some great fightbacks.
Norfolk 's first match was against Nottingham , Thomas Belshaw was selected to play at No.1 but along with Louis Kemp at No.4 and Adam Sinkins at No.5 was unable to trouble their opponents, Notts raced into a winning 3-0 lead, before Alex Oliver and Jordan Creed stepped in. Firstly, Alex produced the first great comeback from 0-2 to win 8/10, 6/9, 10/8, 9/3, 10/8 against Robert Abel, then Jordan displayed similar fighting qualities to record a 3-1 win against James Grice, and the tie was narrowly lost 3-2.
The story was similar after lunch against Leicestershire with Thomas, Louis and Adam again unable to trouble their stronger Leicester opponents. Alex again recovered from 0-1 down to win 3-1 against Tom Piper, and Jordan also showed all his fighting qualities to record a 9/7, 3/9, 9/7, 9/10, 9/5 win at No.2 against Callum Greasley. Result Norfolk 2 Leicestershire 3.
Against Bucks, Alex and Jordan's earlier monumental efforts had taken their toll, and despite mustering every conceivable drop of energy left, more errors started to creep into their game, and they both went down 3-1 to their sharper Bucks opponents. Thomas Belshaw produced his best match against the talented 12 year old Ben Sheldon, and came very close to stretching the match to a fourth set before going down 3-0. Jason Kent stepping in at No.5 for his first match fought hard but was unable to seriously trouble his opponent, and it was left to Louis Kemp to see if he could avoid the whitewash. At 2-0 down things did not look promising for him. But, after fighting back to take the third set, Louis continued his improvement to produce his first win in a competitive county match 4/9, 5/9, 9/7, 9/2, 9/1. Result Norfolk 1 Bucks 4.
Final match scores Leicestershire 50, Nottinghamshire 43, Buckinghamshire 26, Norfolk 17 pts.
