At the recent junior county championships , Northern juniors played tremendously well and came away with a huge haul of trophies.
In the under 11 girls Zoe Shipsey and Grace Moor both made it to the semi finals but fell at that final hurdle and the eventual winner was Willow Morris from Jesmond.
Will Johnson and Hugo Fletcher also made it to the Semis but although performing well , just missed out and the event was won by Ollie Forster of Jesmond
Our very own Thompson twins made the semi finals of the boys under 13 event but unfortunately had to play each other … John saved 4 match balls in the fourth but then lost 15 – 13 in the fifth. Matthew therefore went into the final where he played the number 1 seed , Dan Neill of Jesmond. Matthew was 2 match balls down at 10 – 8 in the fifth but came back strongly to win 12 – 10 for his first county championship.
We also had two semi finalists in the girls under 13 event - Katie Barker lost to Beth Dean 0 – 3 but Katie Merlane won 3 – 0 against Annie Anderson. That led to another Northern vs Jesmond struggle and once again it went to 5 sets … at 9 – 9 all in the fifth , parents and coaches were finding it hard to watch but Katie hit a couple of great shots to that game and become a county champion for the second time.
We had two semi finalists again in the under 15 boys , and unfortunately they had to play each other again … Andrew Shipley beat Thomas Moore 3 – 1. Andrew couldn`t maintain that form and went down 3 – 0 to a very strong Max Forster of Jesmond.
The under 15 girls event our strongest category , 8 of the 15 entries were from Northern and three of them , Erin Vitty , Aanya Hamilton and Megan Evans made it to the semi finals. Megan Evans upset the seedings by beating the number 1 seed Erin , whilst Lowri Waugh of Jesmond was too strong for Aanya Hamilton. Megan put up a great show in the final but lost narrowly , 3 – 1.
We had the number 1 seed in both the under 17 boys and girls events in Michael Mattimore and Josie Barker and both players had comfortable runs through to the final , Michael showed that he is a class apart in his age group by winning 3 – 0 against Ben Waugh but Josie had a titanic struggle against Laura Neill of Jesmond . The crowd were on the edge of their seats as the match seesawed until it reached 8 – 8 in the fifth. She just managed to squeeze the last 3 points to win her first county championship after 8 years of trying!
Michael Mattimore also made the semis in the boys under 19 event with Sam Broughton but they lost out to Chris Wiggins and Jamie Todd who contested the final. Tegan Younger went one better in the Under 19 girls where she made the final but found Georgia Webster to be a little too strong , 1 – 3. We also had success in the plate events with Megan Freeman, Milan Stach , Dylan Gittins and Tom Cornell all winning plate events and Beth Tudor , Tom Wight , Keiran Mahoney, Rebecca Grogan, Ewan Strathdee, Ross Truman and Lettice Lamb all finishing as runners up.
To cap a very successful weekend Josie Barker was awarded the annual John Dale trophy which is awarded to the junior who has been the county junior who has been our representative for the previous year … both on and off the court.
It was an awesome junior county championships with 115 entries and Dave Barnett did a brilliant job of organizing the event. A special mention also goes to DB Glaziers who once again sponsored the tournament.
