Comberton Boys brave Area Team Competition

Four Comberton juniors were chosen to take part in the National Area Team Competitions in Birmingham this weekend at the prestigious and historic Edgebaston Priory Club. The Area teams from around the country can represent regional groupings of four or five counties and so this was obviously going to be tougher than even representing Cambridgeshire at county level.

Our lads were Will Collett, Tom Blair, and Marcus Connolly - picked from the Cambridgeshire county U13 squad to play in the Eastern Area U13 team. And Tom Symmons picked from the county U15 squad to play in the Eastern U15 team. Tom was alternating in fifth position with Paul Jordan of Hunts County - a frequent visitor to Comberton and a popular participant in our Gods of Squash training events.

Will fought bravely at third position in the Eastern U13 team but was up against formidable opponents in the other area teams and was not able to win any games. Marcus was also pitted against quality opponents and did not get any games. But both Tom Blair and Tom Symmons were able to get games against at least one of their opponents. Tom Blair in fact won his second match 3:2 on Saturday afternoon. This was a excellent performance in a match that had numerous interruptions - mainly for treatment of a previous injury to his opponent. It was hard for Tom to keep his focus and he dropped several points clearly upset by his opponent's painful movement. Tom was also unlucky to lose a key set-two tie break in the third game. But in the end he clinched the match.

Tom Symmons did not actually win his first match but turned it around from a 2:0 deficit to gain the only points for Eastern against the strong NorthEast area team on Saturday - losing 2:3 while the rest of the team went down 0:3 at 1st to 4th positions. Unfortunately in his second outing, on Sunday, this time against the SouthWest team number five, he was not able to collect many points against a very powerful opponent.

This was perhaps the toughest competition any of our juniors had ever faced - they all fought bravely and with good spirit. And we all had a chance to see some of the best junior squash players in the country. Thanks to all of our lads for turning out and competing.