The 12 Counties Event at Corby started on 1st November with the 12 and under girls and boys teams competing. Cambridgeshire were promoted to the top Division last year and were joined by the Counties of Yorkshire, Hertfordshire and Essex. The event consists of the age groups 10/12/14/16 and 18 and under and is played on various weekends throughout the winter months. Each age group consists of 4 girls and 4 boys and they play the best of three short sets against their opposite number from each County. The team finishing first receives 4 points; second 3 points; third 2 points and fourth one point. All the points are combined from each age group to give an overall winning County at the end of all the age groups.
The girls’ team of Megan Carmichael, Laurie Crickshank, Neha Kibria and Charlotte Laing performed extremely well and finished second overall.
In the first match they played Yorkshire. Megan narrowly lost to Jessica Dawson 1/4, 5/4 and 2-10 in the match tie break; Laurie lost to Savannah Dada-Mascoll 0/4, 1/4; Neha narrowly lost to Charlotte Margetson 2/4, 4/0, 6-10 and then Charlotte beat Millie Skelton 5/3, 4/2. This meant they lost over all 1 – 3.
In the second match they played Hertfordshire and all four players played very well winning all their matches. Megan beat Annabel Davies 4/1, 4/2; Laurie beat Natalie Wagner 4/0, 4/0; Neha beat Alice O’Neil 4/2, 5/3 and Charlotte beat Alexandra Gamzakova 4/0, 4/1 to give Cambs a 4-0 win.
In the final match against Essex the team were again on great form and won all their matches. Megan beat Ananya Vartak 4/0, 4/2; Laurie beat Ella Madle 4/0, 5/4 (11/9); Neha beat Azra Ozerin 4/0, 4/2 and Charlotte beat Rebecaa Creevy 4/0, 4/0. Another resounding 4 – 0 win. Congratulations to Charlotte on winning all her matches.
The boys team of Yujiro Onuma, Darius Fatemi-Ghomi, Rohan Iyengar and Leon Kewney had some very tough matches against some very strong teams and despite losing the first two matches – they all played very well in the last round to finish third overall.
In the first match against Yorkshire the boys could possibly have drawn this with some luck. The top player Yujiro Onuma was up against Jack Batchelor, who is ranked number one in GB. Yujiro played a great game but narrowly lost 2/4, 2/4. Darius lost to Lleyton Scott 1/4, 3/5 but Rowan won against Michael McDugall 4/2, 2/4 10-5. In the final match Leon just lost to Alexander Tikhonov 4/2, 1/4 and 7-10. In the end they lost 1 – 3.
In the second match against Hertfordshire again Yujiro put up a great fight before losing 4/0, 2/4, 7-10 to Andre Raath. Darius and Rohan were beaten quite easily and Leon lost 0/4, 4/5 to Ben Feltham giving Herts a 4- 0 win.
In the final match the boys all played well and managed to end on a good win against Essex. Yujiro lost 1/4, 2/4 to Adam Groves but then Darius played extremely well to beat Anthony Weingarten 4/0, 4/0. Rohan had a great match against Sam Contsantinou wining 4/5, 4/1 10-5 to leave the result depending on the last match of the day. Leon fought very hard and edged out Arin Ozerin 4/2, 4/2 to give the boys a well - deserved 3-1 win.
Overall the positions after the first weekend of matches are:
Yorkshire 7 points Boys 2nd Girls1st
Hertfordshire 6 points Boys 1st; Girls 3rd
Cambridgeshire 5 points Boys 3rd; Girls 2nd
Essex 2 points. Boys 4th; Girls 4th
Captain Sue Rich was very pleased with the team and how they responded after losing the first match.
The next round is the 10 and under who play on 20th December.