Gosforth Academy girls under 15 team are national champions ! following on from last season when the schools under 15 boys team won the national schools squash competition , this season the girls have followed suit.
The squad of Tegan Younger , Josie Barker , Ellie Watling, Erin Vitty , Aanya Hamilton , Sophie Reay and Lois Cherry travelled to the national squash centre in Manchester to play Wycombe High school in the semi – final which they won comfortably , 5 – 0 .
There was a surprise in the other semi – final , where the pre event favourites , Dame Allans , also from Newcastle , were beaten by Cleve school from Gloucestershire, a team who had never entered the competition before.
In the final Gosforth Academy got off to a great start with Erin Vitty and Aanya Hamilton winning comfortably 3-0 at four and five. Cleve school's top three players are highly ranked and although Tegan Younger and Ellie Watling battled hard they were no match for Elin Jones and Freya Lane. That meant that it all came down to the second string game between the Academy's Josie Barker and her much higher ranked opponent , Cerys Jones. Josie upped her game to win 11-7, 11-9, 11-8 and Gosforth Academy were crowned national schools champions.
All the girls play at Northern and started playing as a result of our schools outreach programme, so hopefully this will not be a flash in the pan and we can look forward to more success in future.
