Hertfordshire Ladies County Report – Group Stages
1st Stage Weekend 15th/16th November 2008 - Brogan Lane gets last minute call up....
Report by Isobel Smith....
Due to various reasons, i.e. social commitments and injuries, we were unable to field our normal team of stalwarts for the first stage weekend of the inter-county championships. We did however manage to field a team with a few new names in. Isobel Smith (St Albans) and Elke Rubsam (Haileybury) were in the team as normal, but in addition to them playing, at No. 3 was Jenny Pilgrim from Haileybury, who has been playing squash in Hertfordshire for many years but this was the first time I managed to persuade her to play. At No.4 string Paula Shepherd (nee Jenkins) made a welcome return to county squash having had a few years off and at No.5 we had one of our emerging junior talents, Brogan Lane from Bishops Stortford.
The team travelled to Cheltenham for their matches, our first being against a strong Oxfordshire team. Everyone lost their matches 3 – 0 except Brogan, who won her first senior match for Hertfordshire 3 – 0! Brogan overcame any nerves she may have had playing for the senior team and had a great win 3 – 0.
Our second match was against the hosts Gloucestershire. All the matches were closely contested but we still lost 5 – 0, Brogan again having a close five setter with another strong junior, Rebecca Quinney.
Our third match was against Middlesex, who had only fielded four players in their first match and had given a walkover to Oxfordshire but managed to put out a full team against Herts……. typical! This match could have gone either way, with some great performances. Brogan just losing in the fifth to a more experienced player but still playing some excellent squash, Jenny also played a great game narrowly losing 9-7 in the fifth and Elke played well but also lost in the fifth. We eventually lost the match
5 – 0.
Although we came last in our group, it was still a positive weekend with the prospect of some younger players coming through to revive and enhance Hertfordshire’s competitiveness in the future.
Isobel Smith
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