On Sunday 9^th October the U15 Cumbria team travelled to Stockport for stage 1 of the competition, and were under no illusion that it was going to be tough in Group A against Cheshire, Merseyside and Lancashire.

	L to R, Dan Askew (Wigton), Bradley Frain (Whitehaven), Jackson Holliay (Windscale), Dan Harrison (Whitehaven), Jake Twentyman (Wigton)

Cumbria started off against Lancashire who were unable to field the full complement of 5 players, with only 4 in their team. Daniel Askew at no 4 played Carleton Oldham and had a very close first game, 12-10 to Daniel. In the second the more experienced Carleton won 11-8, making it 1-1. Daniel then came to life and won the next two games 11-8 and 11-4, to give Cumbria a 3-1 win. Daniel Harrison played Lewis Rigby and won comfortably 3-0, (11-7, 11-8, 11-6), to make it two ties to nil. Bradley Frain at no 2 played Dan Zhadi and won the first game 11-9, but a much stronger Dan came back to win the next three (11-4, 11-6, 11-7). Last up, playing number 1 was Jackson Holliday (Windscale) against Charlie Cowie, whom he has never beaten before. Jackson took the first game 14-12 with some great squash, but them he lost the second game 6-11, again winning the third 11-7, and then losing the forth 2-11. At 2 games all it was anybody's match and the deciding fifth game went the Lancastrians way 11-6. The match was won 3 ties to 2, all in all a great effort from the team.

Up next was Merseyside, and our number 5, Jake Twentyman beat Jon Fell easily 3-0 (11-2, 11-5, 11-2). Daniel Askew followed up by also beating Ricky Langlands 3 -0 (11-9, 11-2, 11-2), and this in turn was followed by Daniel Harrison who gave Cumbria another 3 - 0 win (11-1, 11-1, 11-7), never giving his opponent a 'look-in'. Bradley at number 2 played Matty Powell and lost 0-3 (9-11, 7-11, 8-11), which was a good effort, and Jackson played Ben Doyle and lost 0-3 (10-12, 5-11, 8-11). The bottom of the order had seen Cumbria home with another 3-2 match win.

To finish the day Cumbria played Cheshire, who had a strong team available. Jake was first on court and despite being two games down came back to make it 2-2, but then lost in the 5^th by a very narrow margin (9-11, 6-11, 11-9, 11-9, 11-13). Daniel Askew played Matt Oakes but lost 0-3 (6-11, 2-11, 8-11). So Cumbria were 2 ties down with the top three to play. Next on was Daniel Harrison who had a tight game with Robbie Conduit, Daniel won 3-2 but it was very close in the five set match (4-11, 11-9, 12-10, 13-15, 11-5). Unfortunately Bradley fired badly losing 3-0 and the match was lost, which meant that Jackson's game with Olly Harris was for bragging rights only, and although he managed to secure one game it wasn't enough and lost 1-3 (9-11, 11-7, 4-11, 4-11), thereby sending Cumbria to their first reverse of the day 1-4.

The final result was that the boys took second place and are through to the next stage in January.