County Cup: 24th – 26th Feb 2017
Girls Under 18 – Barnstaple – Group 5B
Lincolnshire: Lucy Hull / Victoria Beardsley / Pippa Bourne /
Anna – Maria Broskov Larssen / Emma Mastin /
Angela Halton / Charlotte Preistly
Wiltshire
Cornwall
Northamptonshire
The weekend started with several pick up points around the county culminating in the team all meeting up at Grantham Tennis Club at 11am. After a coffee and a cake we were ready to attack our 6.5 hour journey down to Devon.
The journey wasn’t without it’s stops and incidents, with 7 girls in the minibus we were taking toilet breaks roughly every hour and a half, on the occasion of our lunch stop there was a power cut and the service station had to be evacuated – with half of the team having ordered food and unable to have their food cooked and the tills out of action so no refund could be made we stayed around and waited…thankfully the power was only out for 20 minutes.
We finally arrived in Devon about 6:30pm, after plenty of songs and gossip from the back seats. After booking into our rooms we met at the restaurant at the hotel and had our first meal.
Day 1 .v. Wiltshire
We began our county cup campaign against a very strong Wiltshire side that were the favourites for promotion. Lincolnshire showed great attitude and fight and had some close matches, Lucy Hull losing in three sets and Pippa Bourne losing in two closely contested sets. Angela Halton won the only match that day as Wiltshire won 8-1, congratulations to Angela as Wiltshire won their other matches 9-0 and 6-0.
Day 2 .v. Cornwall
Having done our research before the event we knew this was going to be a 50/50 match, and so it turned out. This time Lincolnshire ran out 5-4 winners. Another solid team performance and loud, enthusiastic support from the team when not playing. Charlotte Preistley came into the singles line up on day 2 and produced a very solid performance and a win at number 6. Angela carried on her good form and gained another win for Lincolnshire at 5, Pippa produced an intelligent and aggressive performance at 3. Anna-Maria lost out in three sets and both our top 2, Vicky and Lucy gave everything but came across two strong opponents for the second day in a row, this meant we went into the doubles at 3-3. It all rested on the doubles, when we saw two of the best performance from the weekend. Pippa and Charlotte had an incredible win at second pair 6-1 6-0 showing some great awareness of shot selection and positioning. The third pair doubles of Angela Halton and Emma Mastin showed determination in coming from 1-4 down in both sets to clinch the crucial rubber for the 5-4 win.
Day 3 .v. Northamptonshire
The final day had a sense of inevitability about it. Wiltshire had won 8-1, 9-0 both days and our opponents Northants had lost 1-8, 0-9. We were aware that we had to have the same determination and desire we showed the first two days and not take our opponents lightly. The team went out in aggressive fashion and were very professional with how they approached their individual matches. This resulted in Lincs taking a 6-0 lead after the singles, well done to Lucy, Vicky and Anna – Maria for achieving their first wins of weekend as your efforts deserved. As there was a result in both matches it was decided not to play the doubles so we could start our long journey home.
Off - Court
The girls played with intensity and were competitive in all matches; they also let their hair down in similar fashion. As lively as they were all of them turned up when asked for meal times, and were always ready for play. The highlights consisted of a banana suit, which was worn by the player who had “miss of the day”, Tracy Hull who was unable to get her hotel key card to work – EVER. I will forever have Ed Sheeran going round my head as the girls belted it out every time we were in the minibus.
I was really pleased with the team performance and delighted that every player managed to gain a win over the 3 days. There is much to be optimistic about for 2018……
Steve Wood
Girls 18 Under AGM.