Congratulations to Cambridgeshire's U12 Boys who came 3rd at the AEGON U12 County Cup National Finals at Bolton Arena over the weekend of the 11 & 12 July 2009. Captain and County Cup organiser Sue Rich said the team of Josh Wilson, Ben Clark, Kian Ahyaee and Ryan Storrie "played their hearts out" to take the bronze medals.
Eight county teams qualified for the finals. On the Saturday we played Sussex who were the holders of this cup in 2008. First on court was Josh, our no. 1 player who fought hard but lost to Dan Little 3/5, 0/4. Next on court was Ben who was a little over awed by Sam Rice who is ranked quite highly in his age group and lost 0/4, 2/4. This meant no. 3 player Kian had to win his match in order to keep the tie alive. After narrowly losing the first set 3/5, Kian fought really hard, retrieving some fantastic shots and won 4/2. Then in the tie-break, he out rallied his opponent James Ryan to win 10-3. Josh and Ben were then inspired and played some awesome doubles to beat Dan Little and Sam Rice 4/1, 4/0 to level the score at 2 matches each. In the tie-break shoot out Josh and Ben carried on their winning ways against the same opposition and won 10-4. It was a fantastic team effort and meant we were in the semi-finals.
In the semi-finals we took on Avon who had earlier defeated Middlesex 6-2. Josh again had a tough match narrowly losing to William Archer 3/5, 2/4. Ben at no. 2 was out gunned by James Hardman 3/5, 1 /4, although he did have his chances. Again the match rested on Kian, who lost the first set 2/4, fought back terrifically to take the second 4/1 but then narrowly lost the tie-break 7-10. The doubles pairing of Josh and Ryan played well once more, beating Kristian Newman and Chris Johnson 4/0, 4/1.
This meant we were playing on Sunday for 3rd and 4th place against Warwickshire. Josh got the team off to a great start with a 4/1, 4/1 win over Luke Oakley. Unfortunately Ben lost to Mason Recci 1/4, 3/5 but again Kian came to the rescue and out thought and out maneuvered the physically strong Luke Hammond 4/1, 4/1. The doubles team of Josh and Ben then kept up their 100% record and beat Luke Oakley and Mason Recci 4/2, 4/0 to win the tie 6-2.
Yorkshire won the event, with Avon second and Cambridgeshire third, the best the boys have ever done at this level. It was a great team effort, spear headed on court by Captain Sue Rich – congratulations to them all.