Essex Press Office

Reported by Steve Kerns
Press & Publicity Officer
Essex County Table Tennis Association

FINAL TABLES

Junior Match Secretary Arthur Clark reports on recent Essex Junior matches.

The final three rounds of Junior Championships Division 2C matches were held at the newly refurbished BATTS venue at Harlow on 10 January 2009. All matches were played on two tables.

At the start of the day Essex 3 were in fifth place on 4 points, a point behind Essex 4 in third place. On paper Essex 3 had the easier three matches to play, two of these being the bottom two teams in the Table as well as Berkshire who were in fourth place with the same number of points as Essex 4. Essex 4 had the top two teams to play, unbeaten Warwickshire and second placed Northamptonshire 1.

Essex 3’s first match was against Berkshire with Nial Akata winning a close encounter with Liam McTiernan 12-10, 12-10, 11-9 whilst Alex Holland, after winning an exhausting first game against Jarred Knowles 20-18 lost the next three 4, 8, 4. Grace Collier then had as close a match as Nial in defeating Megan Knowles 11-7, 17-15, 14-12. whilst on the other table Stevie Pell won in five against Maria Tsaptsinos to put the Essex team 3-1 up. Joe Stannard lost 3-0 to Daniel Moses but Nial defeated Jarred 3-0 for an Essex 4-2 lead. Grace beat Maria 3-1 to gain Essex at least a draw but with Stevie losing 3-1 to Megan and both Alex (to the much higher ranked Daniel) and Joe (to the lower ranked Liam) losing their last matches a draw was the end result. Meanwhile Essex 4 opened up with and 8-2 win over Buckinghamshire 2. Michael Barthee lost his opening match to Stuart Crighton 3-0 but on the other table Brandon Crouchman 2-1 up was taken to five for his win against Ben Woodbridge. Thereafter Alice McGahon won her two matches, although taken to five by Angela Oetiker who later on defeated Estelle Purkis in five after losing the first two games. Earlier Estelle had beaten Christina lane 3-0. Chris Penrose finished the match with a 15-13, 4-11, 12-14, 11-5, 11-7 win over Stuart after Brandon had beaten Sam Nolan 3-1. The leaders Warwicks and Northants 1 both had 8-2 wins to leave an unchanged table.

The next round of matches would see the destination of the Division Table and set up the dramatic last round. Essex 3 handed Oxfordshire the wooden spoon with a 10-0 win with Stevie the only player to be taken to five games against Nicole Hunt, their best player. The match that opened up the battle for the runners-up position was that between second placed Northants 1 and third placed Essex 4. A win for the Northants team would guarantee them at least second place. Essex 4 had no intention to lie down quietly and Chris and Brandon won the opening two matches, both strangely 11-1 in the fifth game after four very close games against Ryan Harrison and Sam Wildman respectively. Alice lost to Charlotte Binley 3-1 but Ify Okafor came back from 2-0 down to beat Jordan Wood 11-9 in the fifth to give Essex 4 a 3-1 lead. With Phillip Lawson losing 3-0 to the much higher ranked Jordan Dainty, Brandon maintained the two set lead when coming back from 2-0 down to beat Ryan 11-8 in the fifth. Alice lost 3-0 to Jordan Wood but Ify ensured at least a draw for the fourth team winning in four against Charlotte who is ranked 100 points above her. Chris and Phillip sealed the 7-3 win with 12-10 and 11-6 fifth game wins over Jordan and Sam. For statisticians Essex won all of the six matches that went to a fifth end and the 7-3 sets scoreline equated to 22 game wins and losses by each team!. Essex 4 therefore leapt over Northants into second place in the table. Warwicks, who at various stages in their match with lowly Bucks 2 were 1-1, 2-2, 3-3 and 4-4 won the last two sets to take the Divisional title following the defeat of Northants 1 by Essex 4. With Berkshire narrowly beating Northants 2 6-4 there were now four teams in with a chance of gaining the runners-up position. Essex 4 would have the hardest task against Warwicks. If they could win the runners up spot would be theirs, even a point might be enough if other results went there way.

Essex 3 needed to whitewash Northants 2 to stand any chance of taking second place on sets or games difference as there was the potential for the four teams in contention to all finish on 9 points. This they almost achieved but Joe Stannard lost the sixth match to Miles Chan (ranked 200 points below him) after leading 2-0 and the slender chance was almost gone. Earlier Nial had beaten Miles 11-8 in the fifth and Alex the same but 11-9 over Dominic Barker. Grace and Stevie had both won their first matches 3-1 and repeated this scoreline in the return matches against Rachel Thomson and Gemma Deeley. For a short while this 9-1 win gave Essex 3 second place but this was short lived. Warwicks were in no mood to lose their unbeaten status. Phillip Lawson won his opening match against Jack Randle 7, -7, 4, -2, 10 after Chris Penrose had lost 3-1 to the Division’s only unbeaten player Matthew Outhwaite. 3-0 defeats by the Division’s best girls, Charlotte Spencer and Jessica Birbeck over Ify and Estelle and Michael Barthee’s 3-0 loss to Alan Caffery put Essex 4 4-1 down. The scoreline moved on to 4-2 when Matthew had to concede to Phiillip when trailing 11-9, 8-7 due to a foot injury. Ify and Estelle lost the return girls fixtures each 3-1 but Michael won the last match -10, 10, 8, 10 against Jack for a 7-3 team loss, but enough to overtake Essex 3 in the table by two sets with points equal.

The Division drama was left to the last match between Berkshire and Northants 1 which was still in play after the other three matches had finished. Berks, who had never been higher in the table than fourth, built up a 5-3 lead which was then pulled back to 5-4. With the results of the other three matches now known this last match between Northants Sam Wildman and Berks Jarred Knowles was vital to both sides. The game score between the two players progressed to 2-2 so a sudden death decider. If Sam won this game there would be four teams on 9 points and Northants would finish runners-up by one set. If Jarred won Berks would finish runners-up by one point. In either scenario whichever player lost his team would finish in fifth place. Jarred ran out a comfortable 11-4 winner for the Berkshire team to finish runners up. On the way back home along the M11/A14 the Northants 1 team must have been wondering what had gone wrong and why they lost all six matches in the fifth game against Essex 4.

For Essex 3 Nial won 6 out of 6, Alex 4 out of 6, Joe 3 out of 6, Grace 6 out of 6 and Stevie 5 out of 6. For Essex 4 Chris won 4 out of 6, Brandon 4 out of 4, Phillip 3 out of 4, Michael 2 out of 4, Ify and Alice each 2 out of 4 and Estelle 1 out of 4. All in all a good performance by both teams in a highly competitive Division.

Arthur C. Clark
Essex Junior Match Secretary

COUNTY CHAMPIONSHIPS 2008/2009

JUNIOR DIVISION 2C