To finish the current the season, GEMS ( Gosforth East Middle school ) played CENTRAL ( Gosforth Central Middle school ) for the Gosforth middle school cup.
Twelve players represented each school and had to play three players from the other school that were closest to their playing ability in one game up to 15 points, with sudden death at 14 all.
GEMS team of Andrew Shipley, Tom Cornell, Liam Duncan Kahn, Harry Little, Ali Little, Matthew Thompson, John Thompson, Megan Evans, Beth Tudor, Cesur Tiryaki, Alex Shipsey and Kieran Mahoney looked very strong at the top of the order with four members of last year's county under 13 squad. Meanwhile the CENTRAL team of James Appleby, Tom Porter, Thomas Moore, Tim Charteris, Erin Vitty, Aanya Hamilton, Lucy Hutchinson, Dylan Gittins, Catriona Watling, Milan Stach, Jamie Ogilvie and Sion Gittins looked to have a little more strength in depth.
Predictions of a close contest proved correct. GEMS took the first round of matches 7 – 5, with the standout result being Beth Tudor`s 15 – 10 win over Catriona Watling. The points differential at the end of the first round was 147 – 141 to GEMS.
It was the same in the second round with GEMS winning by 7 – 5 again but the points differential was even closer this time with only four points between the teams, 146 – 142. This meant that GEMS carried a 10 point lead into the final round. Early wins by Jamie Ogilvie, Milan Stach, Sion Gittins, Dylan Gittins and Lucy Hutchinson meant that CENTRAL took an early lead in the last round and it took some big wins by Harry Little, Liam Duncan Kahn and Andrew Shipley to get GEMS back into contention. In the end it all came down to the final match between Tom Cornell of GEMS and James Appleby of CENTRAL and despite a heroic effort by James, the higher ranked Tom ran out a 15 – 9 winner – crashing a trade mark cross court volley winner on the last point.
Well done to both teams .. the quality of squash on show was amazing and just goes to show the success of Northern`s school squash outreach programme.
