Archive News

William is crowned eastern regional squash champion

Norfolk's junior squash players produced one champion and three third-placed finishes in this year's Eastern Regional Closed Championships at Bishops Stortford in Hertfordshire.

William Henden (Broadland) topped the roll of honour in the Boys Under-11 event, emerging as regional champion, Norfolk's first in a decade.

Third-placed finishes were recorded by Milo Butler (East Anglia) in the Boys U11, Sophie Hodges (Reepham/Fakenham) in the Girls U15 and Katie Cox (East Anglia) in the Girls U11.

Norfolk provided 13 of the 82 players in the Championships, where there was stiff competition, especially from Essex and Herts with the East Region being the current National Inter Area Champions at Boys U15, U17 and Girls U15 age groups.

In the Boy's U11s William Henden won his group and Milo Butler finishing as group runner-up. Both faced Essex players in their semi-finals. Milo went down 3-0 to Charlie Green, whilst William stepped up his game to run out a comfortable 3-1 winner against Ben Richardson. William continued his form into the final to record a great 3-0 win over Regional U11 team mate Charlie Green, to become U11 Champion, whilst Milo played with much greater confidence in the 3rd /4th play-off to record a 3-0 win and finish 3rd overall.

Norfolk were best represented in the Boys U17 event with 5 of the 16 players, where Harry Taylor was our only first round winner, and Jordan Creed put in a mighty first round effort before going down 3-2 to Luke Stewart. Having just moved up to the U17 age group Harry found the opposition a bit too strong in his following matches, but showed further promise in recording two close 3-1 defeats before finishing 7th overall. Jordan (10th), Luke (12th), Adam Sinkins (13th) and Connor Doy (14th) also managed one win each to gain invaluable experience at this level.

In the Girls U17 event, Jenny Hodges slipped up with a couple of service and service return errors at the end of her match with Natasha Drake to record a close 3-2 defeat, and finish in 7th position.

Jenny's sister Sophie competed superbly in the U15 girls event and recorded hard fought 3-1 defeats to Anna Kimberley and Emma Payne, the Region's current top two female U15 players, and finish third overall.

Alex Coburn competed gamefully in the Boys U15s, and came within a whisker of taking a 2-0 lead in his first match before going down 3-1, and going on to finish 19th overall. 

In the younger age groups, Giles Evans finished 13th, and Sam Henden 11th with one win in the Boys U13s, and Katie Cox 3rd in the Girls U11 event.

Pictured is Boys U11 Eastern Regional Champion, William Henden.