Cumbria Under 17 Girls Inter County

October 24^th, 2010.

Following our relative previous success at this age group level, it was disappointing to find ourselves with a weakened team this year, when once again we were in one of the hardest Stage 1 groups in the Country. Cumbria could only field 4 players due to an injury to Luisa Mc Gregor (Windscale), and Ashleigh Hunter (Carlisle) being unavailable, meaning that Megan Singleton (Windscale) had to play up a ranking place within the team.

Our first match was against North Wales, who are a traditionally strong outfit. Megan picked up a game against her stronger opponent in a 3-1 loss, while both Hannah Crichton (Windscale) and Victoria Watson (Penrith) lost 3-0. Jessica Winder (Windscale) beat Elin Harlow 3-1 for Cumbria's only win. Match Score North Wales 18pts Cumbria 4.

Cumbria's second match was against Lancashire, who were themselves trying to recover from a sound thrashing in their first match, and it was important for our girls to record a good victory to maintain momentum for the rest of the days squash.

Lancashire were a tie up due to us only having 4 players so it was important for Cumbria to start strongly. Megan had a good 3-0 win at number 4, quickly followed up by Hannah winning comfortably at number 2, also with a 3-0 win. Victoria was undone at number 3 by Chloe Harrison by a 3-1 scoreline, meaning that Jessica needed to win to clinch the match. Jessica never looked like losing as she forced the pace in her match beyond her opponents reach, winning in the end 3-0, and Cumbria claimed the match by 16pts to Lancashire's 5 points

Cumbria's final game of the day saw them against the top seeds  Northumbria. We were up against it from the outset and although we lost 5-0, with only Megan and Hannah managing to win one game each in their games, we more than pushed them in the match, and our 2 points were scant reward for our efforts, Northumbria winning 20 points to Cumbria's 2 points.

The final positions being;

• Northumberland 58pts
• North Wales 44pts
• Cumbria 21pts
• Lancashire 8pts

Cumbria now go into Stage 2 later in the season playing the losers from the other Northern regional group, as yet unknown, hopefully with a full strength team of 5 players.