Cambridgeshire girls and boys teams at 9 and under; 10 and under and 12 and under played in the Lionel Cox at Queenswood School over the Bank Holiday weekend. This is a team event with 3 girls and 3 boys in each age group and played with 10 Counties – Bedfordshire, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Essex, Herts, Norfolk, Northants, Suffolk, Oxfordshire. The Counties were then divided into two groups and Cambridgeshire played each County in their group and depending on the position they finished in the group they played their opposite number in the other group to end up with a position from 1 to 10.
It was a hectic weekend and despite the rain all matches were finished late on Sunday. Pride of place goes to the girls 9 and under team of Marennah Prempeh, Sophie Tjurinic and Gabriella Zailer-Fletcher who won their group. They beat Essex 2 matches to 1; beat Beds 3/0; beat Norfolk 3/0 and beat Oxfordshire 2/1. In the final they played Buckinghamshire and won 2 matches to 1 with Sophie and Gabriella winning all their matches at numbers two and three. It was an excellent team effort to win the age group and win the gold medal.
The boys 12 and under team of Zac Cox, Rohan Iyengar and Yujiro Onuma played very well and finished fifth overall. They beat Oxfordshire 2/1; beat Bedfordshire 2/1 but then lost to Herts 1 /2 and then lost to Suffolk 1 /2 to finish third in the group. In the play-off match they beat Buckinghamshire 2/1 to finish fifth overall. Pride of place goes to Yujiro who won all his matches at number three.
The boys 10 and under team of Felix Dean, Charlie Adams and Dougie McKee beat Suffolk 3/0; beat Norfolk 2/1 ; but then lost to Northants 1/2 and lost to Essex 0/3 in their group to finish third in the box. In the play- off match they beat Berkshire 3/0 to finish fifth overall.
The boys 9 and under team of Ganesh Mullaparthi, Rafa Tan and Jaylen Cheng despite playing well lost 0/3 to Herts; lost 0/3 to Suffolk;
Beat Berkshire 2/1; lost to Essex 1 /2 to finish fourth in their box. In the play -off match they beat Bedfordshire 2/1 to finish seventh.
The girls 12 and under team of Megan Carmichael, Chaaya Malik, and Neha Kibria lost to Essex 0/3, lost to Suffolk 1/2 but then beat Northants 2/1 to finish third in their box. In their play- off match they beat Buckinghamshire 3/0 to again finish fifth overall.
The girls 10 and under team lost their top player Weiqi Ye so had to replace her with 9 and under Gabriella who played both 9 and 10 and under! This meant the team was considerably weakened but Sarah Thomas, Nicole Quinton and Gabriella played their hearts out and despite losing 0/3 to Herts and 1/2 to Bucks and Norfolk they then beat Oxfordshire 2/1 to finish fourth in their box. In the play- off they narrowly lost to Essex 1 /2. A special mention to Gabriella who won three of her matches having to play both green and orange!
Overall Cambridgeshire finished fifth which was a good achievement and with a little luck could have been fourth!