U13s Shires final

Team: Jess Hopton, Brendan Foreman, Anna Manley, Pete Wrigglesworth, Sally Mortimer, Jack Costello, Saskia Manson, Henley Ngan, Megan Foreman, Aidan Gibbons

Avon U13s finished the season with another great performance, this time in the Shires League final. We were joined in Leicester by 7 other counties who had finished as winners or runners up of the four ‘regional’ leagues.

It was an extremely strong line up, but we took some comfort from the fact that we couldn’t be drawn against the top side, Buckinghamshire, as we had already played them in the qualifying round. Still, it wasn’t much consolation as we were drawn against Hampshire, probably the second strongest of the counties.

Undaunted by the quality of the opposition, the players set about taking the mixed 3-1 with excellent wins for Pete/Sally, Henley/Anna and Aidan/Megan. Jess pulled off a fantastic win against fellow England player, Victoria Williams and Pete also had a great win to maintain our slender lead. Unfortunately Hampshire then hit top form in the doubles where Brendan and Pete managed our only win. The final score was 14-6 to Hampshire (sorry Jayne, I was right about it being 14-6 rather than 13-7!)

Defeat put us in the draw for positions 5-8 and Sussex, another team littered with Grade 1 players, was pulled out of the hat as our next opponents. Jess/Brendan got us off to a winning start with a convincing win while Aidan/Megan staged an amazing comeback to sneak a 21-20 win having been 20-14 down! The boys dominated their opponents with great wins for Brendan, Pete and Henley in the singles while Pete/Brendan and Henley/Jack secured a clean-sweep of the doubles. The girls had a much tougher time losing all 4 singles, although Anna played brilliantly losing 21-17 to a grade 1 player. Jess/Sal picked up one of the doubles to make the final score 10-10, but unfortunately we lost out by a miserly 6 points.

The final match was against Lancashire who were a bit of an unknown quantity. The match was level at 2-2 after the mixed but by the end of the singles we had edged ahead to lead 7-5. The boys continued their excellent form winning 3 close games in the doubles. Anna/Saskia fought with their last reserves of energy and were unfortunate to go down 21-18. However, Jess/Sally sealed victory with 2 comfortable wins.

The final score was 12-8 to Avon putting us in 7^th place overall. All of the children should be extremely proud of the quality of their play, their determination and the outstanding sportsmanship and team spirit they have displayed, not just in the final but also during the qualifying round.

This was the last U13 match for Anna, Saskia, Brendan, Jack and Henley who all move up to the U15s next season. Goodbye and good luck, it’s been a real pleasure having you onboard.