The Victorious Essex Cadet Team
Arthur Clark reports on the first round of matches in Division 1B of the Cadet County Championships.
Essex’s first venture into the Cadet County Championships provided a successful day for the Team. Essex hosted the Eastern Region of the Division at BATTS Harlow on 3 December 2011 with matches played on two tables whilst the other four teams in the Division held two rounds of matches at Leamington Spa.
Against a Suffolk team Essex did not get the start they would have wanted. Samuel Lowman lost to Max Boulter 3-0 whilst on the other table Livingstone Nadarajah, having won the first game 11-8 lost the next three 6, 8, 6 to Alex Horscroft. Next on the girls showed how it should be done. After a nervous start in which she had to save a game point against Katherine Shaw, Stephanie Cross settled to win 10, 3, 2 and Jane Li, having just completed two five game singles in the adjacent Essex Junior Inter League match, beat Natalie Wills 5, 10, 6. For Ryan Williams it appeared that he thought his match against Harvey Dinkele would be a cake walk and a lacklustre effort in the first game resulted in a 11-9 loss. However after an interval talk with coach Paul Collier Ryan showed what he could do by winning the next three games 2, 1, 3. On the other table Samuel lost a first game he should have won 13-11. Winning the next two 7 and 10 he won’t want to remember the fourth and saving two match points in the fifth he finally won 13-11. The girls then won their remaining two matches easily 3-0. Ryan then beat Max 4, 8, 3 but Livingstone had to endure a five game match with Harvey before coming through -5, 15, -10, 3, 3 . Essex had started off with an 8-2 win.
Suffolk then played Cambridgeshire, Cambs winning all the boys matches and Suffolk the girls matches, two of which were conceded because Cambs number one girl failed to arrive through illness.
Essex then played the Cambs team knowing they started 2-0 up because Cambs still only had one girl. Samuel lost his opening match to Adam Jepson, ranked 130 places above him 3-1, but Livingstone won his opening match against Max Schwiening 3-1. Stephanie had an easy win over Ena Catlin 6,3,4 and later on Lara Esquivel had an even easier win over Ena 4, 3, 1.After scraping through his first game with Harris Ryder 14-12 the next two were far easier, 6 and 3. Samuel had to come back from 2-1 down to Max before winning -10, 3, -5, 8, 5 and although Ryan’s match with Adam was close he lost 9, 9, 7.Livingstone also lost his match to Harris 3-0 so Essex had a 7-3 win. Thanks also to Neil Warren for his help in coaching the team during this match.
With results now known of the matches played at Leamington Spa at the same time Essex lead the Table on sets difference by one set over Leicestershire. A league table will be added once published on the ETTA website.
The final round of matches will be played at Leamington Spa on Saturday 17 March.
Arthur C. Clark
Junior Match Secretary