The Lothian U-14 (2005+) team travelled to York to take part in the two day individual and team event at the Yorkshire Railway Institute. An early start on the Saturday meant a long day for all, playing individual singles and level doubles events. Only the pool winners qualified for the knock out events, and a number of Lothian players were unlucky to win all their games bar one to qualify. In particular, Arjun’s 3 setter against Daniel Kemp, Ishbel’s battle against fellow Scot Katrina Chan, Harry’s tussle with the English 2ndseed and Finlay’s marathon and match point in the knock out against eventual winner Anthony McGuire, showed we have real talent in this age group.
Our stand out result in the singles however was Vibha’s domination of the final against Katrina 15-9 15-11, and a worthy gold medal winner.
The doubles events were of a similar high standard, again with a lot of our couples just losing one game, and not making it out of the pool. Special mention to Hannah/Katie and Poppy/ Freya for some really positive play, and Lewis/Finlay and Harry/Ben for giving their pool seeds a real fright, and just failing to qualify. The best result for the boys goes to Theo and Arjun for taking out the top seeds in their pool, with some great attacking badminton but then unfortunately falling at the semi-final stage.
Unseeded Ishbel and Vibha, picking up from their Dublin Celtic Challenge winning efforts, made their way to the final, winning gold 16-14 in the third set against the top seeds-backed by great Lothian support.
After a lovely walk along the River Ouse on Sunday morning, the team qualified out of their pool and into the last four. A seven game format meant that everyone played 1 game in each match. A defeat to Yorkshire 1 6-1 (Lothian lost all 3 setting games- with Vibha having match point against the English no 1 -u-13 Grace Sachdeva!) and close 4-3 defeats to Surrey and Warwickshire, meant a 4thposition finish. A good effort by all, and on another day, we would have medalled.
A great fun weekend, well done team! Coaches, Mahlen Fox, Matt Wilson and Arlene Bryen were very proud of your performances and behaviour.
Many thanks to John Ellis, competition organiser, all our opponents and our hosts Yorkshire Badminton.
Arlene Bryen
Team (L to R)
Top: Ishbel McCallister, Hannah Carlyle, Poppy Shell, Freya Price, Katie Taylor, Vibha Raman
Bottom: Theo Johnston, Finlay Jack, Harry Bent, Arjun Rajagopal, Ben Riddle, Lewis Higgs
Individual: Vibha Raman, Ishbel McCallister