Northants Spring Racketball League Report – Great Performances All Round
Following our success in last year’s Northants Spring Racketball league we decided to enter two teams this year. Racketball continues to grow in popularity and so there were nine teams entered this year. Our own T1 team was captained by Sam Morris and T2 by Steve Adams.
The season was divided in to two halves. In the first half teams were drawn into three divisions of three teams, each team playing the others home and away in a round robin format. T1 came top of their division and T2 came second to the impressive 2022 league champions – Saints from Northampton.
In the second half of the season the three winners of the first half leagues were drawn together in a newly formed first division, and the runners-up drawn in to a second division. This now brought our T1 team up against the all-conquering Saints and a strong Market Harborough 2 team.
Their first two matches against both teams were a setback, but they salvaged their campaign by winning the last two return matches. Firstly with a narrow 3-2 win against Market Harborough with heroic singles victories by Andy Lay and Simon Joyce, Andy winning a 5th set 12-10 in the singles, before teaming up with Simon to clinch the doubles too.
And so, to the final match against leaders Saints, too far ahead to overhaul as Champions but an opportunity to finish on a high. And what a tremendous effort it was! – finishing the season with a heroic 3-2 victory at home. This time the crucial matches were won by Sam Morris, Andy Lay and Matt Towers in the top three strings. Sam won the first two games, only to be pegged back to 2-2 before taking the 5th game 11-5. Manji Ubhi had an even closer match but narrowly lost after running out of steam in the 5th. Sophie Cable and Simon Joyce then lost a tight match in the doubles, but the victory was already secured.
The final league positions are available to view here https://northantssquash.co.uk/squash57/divisions.php
Congratulations to T1 for a really good campaign and well done to all the players in both teams this season. A big thanks to all who played in at least one match …
| Team | |
|---|---|
| Andy Lay | T1 |
| Athar Ahmed | T2 |
| Harsha Samarawickrama | T2 |
| Ian Muir | T1 |
| Ian Thomas | T2 |
| Ian Wright | T2 |
| Manjit Ubhi | T1 |
| Matt Towers | T1 |
| Paul Armstong | T2 |
| Russell West | T2 |
| Sam Morris | T1 |
| Simon Joyce | T1 |
| Simon Marshall | T2 |
| Sophie Cable | T1 |
| Steve Adams | T2 |
| Steve Barlow | T2 |
