In a toughly contested group at the 12 Counties championships, and a nail biting finish, the Essex U16 girls team came out on top. The team consisted of Alex Jones, Erica Izatt, Seyi Adebgite and Caitlyn Hardy and all of them contributed to the team's success. In the first match against Northants, Alex lost a tie break third 11-9 but we recovered from a 0-2 deficit to draw when Seyi and Caitlyn won comfortably at 3 and 4.
Now all properly warmed up and playing well, all four girls won their matches in the second round against Bedfordshire. There was however, some tough matches in there with Erica and Alex coming through to win tight second sets and Seyi recovering from losing a first set to love.
The Northants v Leics match turned out to be a bit of a marathon and as we started the third round we still didn't know that result. Erica saved her best for last and put in a tremendous virtually error-free performance to hammer the Leics no.2 and put us in a good position. Alex started strong and then came through to win 4-1, 5-3 at no.2 and by this time we knew the other match had been drawn. So we just needed one win from Caitlyn or Seyi to finish top of the group. Both girls started well, but it was Seyi who sealed the win a with a fine victory. Caitlyn kept fighting to the end but eventually lost a third set tie-break meaning that we won that match 3-1.
It was a great performance from all the girls and Seyi who didnt have a good start did well to finish the day as the only undefeated Essex player.
Helen Crook, Team Captain