Playing against Yorkshire, Essex and Hertfordshire in division 1 it was important to get off to a good start. Playing Yorkshire 1st, the girls went two matches down with Anna Loughlan and Lauren Watson Steele losing a very close match tiebreak 8-10. Lizzie Pam and Zoe Douglas both won their matches easily to make a 2-2 draw with Yorkshire.
The boys ended up 2-2 with Yorkshire too. John Taylor winning the match tiebreak 10-3 while Dominic Lea and Josh Wilson both lost in straight sets. This meant Ben Clark won his match 4-0 4-1 to get the draw.
Playing Essex next, the girls won 4-0 and the boys ended with another 2-2. Zoe Douglas and Lizzie Pam won in straight sets dropping only one game and Lauren Watson Steele won in two tiebreak sets while Anna Loughlan got a walkover.
As for the boys, Josh Wilson injured his shoulder and John Taylor lost two very tight sets 3-5 4-5 (4) but again it was Ben Clark who kept Cambridgeshire in it with a 4-2 4-0 win while Dominic Lea won 4-0 4-1.
Last up was Hertfordshire and the favourites with both the girls and the boys and so it proved but it was the boys who nearly caused the upset with Ben Clark who was looking for his 3rd win out of 3, Dominic Lea and John Taylor all going down in the match tiebreak so it was a great effort from them all. To lose 4-0 to Herts and losing three matches in a match tiebreak was quite hard to take but they battled very well.
The girls wasn’t as close and Anna Loughlan, Lauren Watson Steele and Lizzie Pam all lost in straight sets while Zoe Douglas’ efforts were in vain as she went down to Emily Arbuthnott in straight sets.
All this meant that the girls ended up 2nd and the boys 3rd.
Captain Chris Johnson said “it was a good effort from the girls to finish 2nd as Herts were always going to be very strong, with good performances from Zoe Douglas and Lizzie Pam while the boys finished 3rd which was slightly disappointing but the injury to Josh Wilson certainly didn’t help but Ben Clark had good day and was unfortunate not to win all three”.
The 12 Counties event consists of three divisions, and is played in the age group categories of U10, U12, U14, U16 and U18’s and the results of all the age groups go towards a final table. After being promoted to division 1, Cambridgeshire are looking to stay in the division.