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Inter County Finals
10-11 March 2007,
Nottingham |
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New Champions at Nottingham
Alison Henley reports
The final senior Inter County Finals weekend of the season was held
at Nottingham on the 10-11 March and brought together the Men,
Women and Women O50 finalists
In all three categories last season's winners were hoping to retain
their titles, but it didn’t quite work out as they had hoped.
Saturday - Semi Finals
The first Men’s semi final was between holders Surrey – going for a
5th consecutive win -and last season's 4th placed Cambridgeshire.
The experienced Surrey side overwhelmed a young Cambridgeshire 5-0
and set up a final with southern rivals Sussex who convincingly beat
a very young Yorkshire side 5-0 in the second semi.
Derbyshire met last season runners up Sussex in the first Women’s
semi final. Sussex were always going to struggle after losing Rachel
Willmott to injury late on Friday night, unable then to find a
replacement and travelling with only 4 players. They lost a tight
match 3-2. Holders Lancashire, fielding a depleted line up crashed
out to a strong Essex side 4-1.
Women’s O50 Champions Cheshire also fell in the semis, beaten by
Avon 3-0, and were joined in the final by Oxfordshire who beat
Lancashire 3-0 in a match tighter than the score line suggests.
Sunday – Play offs and Finals
Play Offs
Sunday morning saw the play offs for 3rd and 4th places.
Cambridgeshire v Yorkshire was an extremely competitive match,
epitomised by the 73 minute rubber between Steffan Morgan and Adam
Taylor which Adam won for Yorkshire 3-2. Yorkshire won equally tight
matches and clinched the tie and 3rd place 3-2.
Sussex’s bad injury luck continued in their play off match, with
both Suzie Pierrepont and Jenna Gates retiring, giving Lancashire a
comfortable 4-1 win.
North West neighbours Cheshire and Lancashire played off in the
Women’s O50’s – Lancashire coming through a close match 3-0.
Finals
Avon proved too strong for Oxfordshire and clinched the Women’s
O50’s title 3-0, without dropping a single game.
Essex won a keenly contested final with Derbyshire 4 ties to 1,
effectively clinched by Rebecca Macree who fought off a battling
Laura Hill 3-2
Sussex also came through 4-1 versus Surrey, although the match might
have gone to the wire had Neil Desai’s call of ‘set one’ in the
deciding 5th game of his clash with Olly Pett of Sussex, not worked
against him, losing 9-2 2-9 3-9 6-9 8-9.
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Full Finals Results
Men,
Women, Women O50
More updates welcomed
IC@squashsite.co.uk |
Men's Final:
Sussex 4 Surrey 1
Peter Genever bt Stacey Ross 3-1
Tim Vail bt Jesse Engelbrecht
3-1
Tim Garner bt Neil Frankland
3-0
Tom Pashley lost Phil Nightingale 1-3
Oliver Pett by Neil Desai
3-2
Semi-Finals:
Sussex bt Yorkshire 5-0
Surrey bt Cambridge 5-0
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Women's Finals:
Final:
Essex bt Derbyshire 4-1
Semis:
Derby bt Sussex 3-2
Essex bt Lancashire 4-1
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Men's Premier relegation:
Kent won all three matches with a team of Adham Abou Taleb, Ben
Ford, John Brewer, Toby Mortimer, Steve London, Neil Baker, Colin
Payne.
Kent bt Lancs 4-1
Kent bt Cheshire 5-0
Kent bt Middlesex 5-0
Thanks to Toni Ford
It was a great effort by Cheshire to come second in
the Premier relegation group. Lost 5-0 to Kent but came fighting
back with a 4-1 victory over Middlesex and a 3-2 win over
Lancashire. The team was Shaun Pearson, Michael Waight, Nick
Murrills, Liam Foster and Mike Dickens.
Thanks to Mike Dickens
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Women's Premier Promotion:
Yorkshire were promoted back to the Premier Division with convincing
wins over Staffordshire (4-1), Leicestershire (5-0) and Cheshire
(5-0).
The Yorkshire team was Lauren Siddall, Kirsty McPhee, Claire Walker,
Julie Field and Emma Hinkles.
Thanks to Claire Walker |
Division One Promotion:
Herts make the Premier
Jason Foster reports
Congratulations to the Hertfordshire Men's County team who
achieved a fantastic first by gaining promotion from the first
division to the Premier this weekend.
The team was;
1. Chris Ryder (Berkhamsted)
2. Adam Fuller (Berkhamsted)
3. Adrian Waller (Potters Bar)
4. Keith Timms (Broxbourne)
5. Neil Waller (Potters Bar)
Adrian Waller, Neil Waller, Jason Foster, Marc Woolhead
Adam Fuller, Keith Timms, Chris Ryder
As we were in the division one
promotion group only the winning team qualify for the Premier
League.
On Saturday morning we beat Devon 4-1 with Neil Waller the only
loser, his preparation for the match wasn't great because I got lost
getting us back to the club after picking him up in my car from the
train station.
1. Chris Ryder bt James Snell
9-3, 9-1, 9-5
2. Adam Fuller bt Mike Gregory
9-2, 6-9, 5-9, 9-2, 9-1
3. Adrian Waller bt Jonathan Gliddon 9-1,
9-6, 9-3
4. Keith Timms bt Matt Baker
9-3, 9-2, 9-5
5. Neil Waller lost to Mike Harris
1-9, 6-9, 4-9
In the afternoon we faced hot favourites and hosts Gloucestershire.
We were bolstered by the news they were without their number 1
Alister Walker (WR 32) which meant they all had to move up the
order.
Adrian and Neil got us off to a great start winning their respective
matches 3-1. Adrian, who recently became the British Under 19
Champion played excellently to beat a player ranked 183 in the
world.
After a nervous start Neil dug in and by extending the rallies and
keeping up the pace of the game was too good for the East Glos Club
Pro.
 Chris
was on court next against a player ranked higher than him in both
the English and World rankings (Chris Eng 23 WR 66 - Alex Eng 18 WR
59)
What Chris did was extraordinary! The standard of squash from both
players was superb but Chris was so good he forced Alex into many
unforced errors, Chris intelligently moved the ball around the court
and worked Alex so hard in particular using the lob shot to great
effect.
After 45 minutes of pure class squash Chris 'Easy' Ryder silenced
the Glos crowd to take the match 3-0 for the loss of only 7 points!!
This meant that we were 3-0 up and in great shape for promotion.
On the other court Keith Timms was involved in an epic match and
narrowly lost the first 2 games, not to be outdone Keith won the
third but ran out of steam after 100 minutes of gruelling squash to
go down in four
Adam Fuller played excellently against Jonathan Harford (WR 71) but
went down 3-0.
1. Chris Ryder bt Alex Stait
9-1, 9-1, 9-5
2. Adam Fuller lost to Jonathan Harford
3-9, 7-9, 5-9
3. Adrian Waller bt Robbie Temple
9-5, 9-2, 5-9, 9-6
4. Keith Timms lost to Chris Tasker-Grindley 9-10, 8-10, 9-5, 4-9
5. Neil Waller bt Jonathan Gallacher
2-9, 9-5, 9-3, 9-5
On Sunday morning our opponents from Essex had a depleted squad with
Lee Drew (England no 13) forced to withdraw through injury and they
subsequently handed us a walkover.
This meant that we had won the group and gained promotion for the
very first time.
Well done to the team.
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