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Photos: Julia Piotrowicz
York 1sts fought valiantly, but ultimately came up short against a strong Newcastle 1sts side led by an inspired performance from their captain Jess Wilkins to go out of the Northern Conference Cup at the quarter final stage.
The first match saw Captain Rachel Farrington narrowly winning in three sets. In a big hitting, high quality match Farrington won the first set relatively comfortably 21-8 before being pegged back and beaten in the second set 15-21. However she quickly found her composure in the third set and came through the third set relatively comfortably 21-8 to take York into an early lead.
However this lead was quickly wiped out as Dani Farsiani was comfortably beaten by Newcastle captain Jess Wilkins in two sets 10-21, 8-21. Wilkins was in excellent form, bamboozling Farsiani with her huge shot repertoire, one second she would be involved in a baseline rally, the next she would leave Farsiani scrambling with a deft drop shot. It was clear that Wilkins was in a different league to anyone else in the court today and Farsiani did by no means play badly, but never had much of a chance when matched up against Wilkins’s virtually unreadable game.
Still, with the tie evenly poised the doubles was clearly going to be crucial to the destination of the tie. Beth Cowell and Charlie Parker put up a valiant fight being involved in some epic rallies and staging some brilliant last ditch net play, but ultimately they went down in two sets. With the Newcastle pair 13-20 up, the York girls staged a valiant fight back to make the score 19-20, however Newcastle ultimately got the point they needed to get over the line taking the first set 19-21. The second set remained a tight affair but Newcastle came out on top 14-21 to take the match.
The second doubles match turned into something of an epic with the York pair of Cass Brown and Alllison Cannon edging out the first set 21-17. The second set continued in much the same vein with both pairs pegged at 9-9 in the second set before Newcastle pushed on to take the second set 19-21. Both sides had periods of brilliant play but also periods of mental lapses and agonising misses. The third and final set was the closest of the three as well as the highest quality, with the Newcastle pair eking out a 20-22 victory to move Newcastle into a 3-1 lead.
The third singles match saw Farsiani involved in an epic tussle. The first set was an extremely close affair with both Farsiani and the Newcastle player being involved in some excellent rallies. However Farsiani was slightly inconsistent often following up an excellent winner with a miss. The Newcastle player took the first set 18-21 and the second set remained a close affair. However in this set Farsiani upped her game considerably, playing a varied and aggressive game to take the second set 21-16. Unfortunately she was unable to maintain this momentum into the third set going down 8-21.
Therefore the tie would be decided by a battle between the two captains Farrington and Wilkins. Unfortunately Wilkins proved much too strong for Farrington winning comfortably in two sets 7-21. 10-21 to put the tie beyond doubt, although the first set was evenly balanced at 6-6 Wilkins then kicked on to comfortably take the match. However Farrington should be given credit for forcing Wilkins to up her game in the match.
The final two matches were dead rubbers but the players still played to the best of their abilities. Cowell and Parker were able to salvage some York pride beating an error strewn Newcastle pair 21-15, 21-17. In the final match Brown and Cannon went down 14-21, 13-21 to finalise the score at 6-2 to Newcastle.
Despite the defeat captain Rachel Farrington was happy with her sides performance and was also fulsome in her praise for Newcastle stating “they’re a really good side, but I couldn’t fault anyone with our performance today, hopefully we’ll get our revenge when we play them next in the league”.
Great to hear. I love badminton.