The Cambridgeshire girls 8 and under team played their hearts out on Sunday at Gosling to finish with the bronze medals. The team headed by very strong numbers one, two and three Marennah Prempeh, Sophie Tjurina, Gabriella Zailer-Fletcher, but ably supported by Amilia Hudson, Leila Fatemi-Ghomi and Lottie Tasker played against the Counties of Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Hertfordshire, Norfolk and the Buckinghamshire and Essex.
There were 10 Counties competing in two groups of 5. Each team had six players and they played against their opposite number from each of the other Counties. The winner and runner up from each group then progressed to the semi-finals and the other teams played off for positions 5 to 10.
First up for Cambridgeshire were Bedfordshire and Marennah Prempeh at number one got the team off to a flying start winning 10/5; followed by wins for Sophie Tjurina 10/5 and Gabriella Zailer- Fletcher 10/2. Although the lower end played well they all lost 6/10 leaving Cambs with a 3 all draw in the first match.
Next up were Berkshire and again the top three all won as did Liela and Lottie at numbers 4 and 6 to give Cambs a 5/1 win.
The next match saw Cambs take on a very strong Hertfordshire team and again the top three all won some very exciting matches and played exceptionally well. The lower three played well but all lost to leave Cambs drawing again 3 matches all.
In the final group match Cambs beat Norfolk 5 matches to 1 with Amilia getting her first but very important win.
This meant the team progressed to the semi-finals where they took on Buckinghamshire. Again Marennah, Sophie and Gabriella were outstanding winning 10/7, 10/3, 10/4 respectively but unfortunately the numbers four, five and six all lost so the match was drawn 3 all. Cambs lost on the count back of points having 2 fewer than Bucks who moved into the final.
In the third and fourth playoff against Essex the team were determined not to lose out on points! Again the top three all won 10/2, 10/6, 10/7 and the Lottie at number 6 played a really good match to win 10/9 and clinch the third position.
Team Captain Sue Rich was delighted with the team as all the girls tried really hard and the Marennah, Sophie and Gabriella finished the day winning all 18 of their matches and overall Cambs did not lost a match – they just drew too many!!!
In the afternoon it was the turn of the boys’ team of Ganesh Mullaparthi, Jaylen Cheng, Ryan Parkins, Sarvesh Singh, Tom Unwin and Hugh Ponder. This team had three young players in it so they did particularly well to finish sixth overall.
They drew with Bedfordshire 3 matches all; Lost 2-4 to Northants; lost 1-5 to Hertfordshire; drew 3 all with Norfolk; beat Suffolk 5-1 and then in the fifth and sixth playoff played Norfolk again and drew 3 matches all but lost by 2 points! Pride of place goes to Jaylen Cheng who won 5 out of his 6 matches and played extremely well all day and Tom Unwin won 4 of his matches.
Captain Sue Rich now hopes all of these players will move onto the Orange ball and looks forward to them playing for Cambridgeshire many times in the years ahead.