Comberton Junior Champions

Under 13 tournament

The under-13 tournament final between Will Harris and Tom Symmons was played on Saturday. Will managed to take quite a few points off Tom but did not get a game. Both of them were awarded their trophies as finalists at the Club Award Ceremony on Sunday. Before presenting their awards Bob Maison mentioned the excellent performance of all the Comberton Juniors over the past year.

Under-16 semis

Tom had also played earlier on Saturday as a semi-finalist in the under-16 tournament - losing 0:3 to Nils Downes. There was some excellent squash in this match suggesting that Tom will soon be pushing the older boys pretty hard.

The other semi-final was between Andy Hall and Euan Macnamee. This was also a hard fought competitive match. Euan won through to the final but Andy was obviously warming up well for his final the following day in the Adult Club Plate (see our next posting). Bob Maison mentioned this match especially at the Award Ceremony because of the excellent sportsmanship and fairness shown by Euan and Andy.

Under-16 tournament final

So the final on Sunday was between Nils and Euan. Some of us felt like this was a touch of deja vu of their previous battles through their years as juniors at Comberton. But looking at their match there was no doubt that this was very mature squash being played - as good as in any of the adult finals.

Nils narrowly won the first game 10:9 and then took the second. But then Euan came out on full throttle to win the third game with a series of the high powered kills that are his speciality. Unfortunately for Euan, Nils managed to increase the pressure enough in the fourth game to limit further attack and so win the match.

The standard of play and commitment to the spirit of the game was excellent throughout. Both the lads making every effort to get to and play every ball giving us exciting flowing high octane squash. But match ball was a disappointing anticlimax when it ended in a penalty stroke as one of Euan's drives ricocheted back at him from the front wall nick.

Somehow I don't think we have seen the last from this classic rivalry...