Herts County Squash

LADIES COUNTY TEAM – MARCH 2007
2ND STAGE RELEGATION WEEKEND
HOSTED BY DEVON

Our senior ladies county team have been plagued with injuries over the last few seasons and this season has been no different. In sharp contrast to the Men’s county team, who are now fielding a very young squad and have been promoted to the Premier Division, well done!, there is still a dearth of junior girls in Hertfordshire. I know there are some junior girls currently working their way up the ranks in Hertfordshire and they will be great assets to the senior county team in a year or so and we can’t wait for them to join us!

However, unfortunately we found ourselves at the relegation weekend and going with a team all suffering from a variety of injuries. The normal team of Isobel Smith, Maureen Morrision, Elke Rubsam and Sheila Blake were joined by Fiona McLure of Next Generation, who has played previously for the county and newcomer Rachael Hosking of Allenburys, who gamely agreed to play for the team at short notice, thanks to Fiona and Rachael for helping the team out!.

We had a long trip down to Devon, but we were all looking forward to it.

Our first match was against the host county Devon. They are a strong county but we remained positive. Rachael unfortunately lost her match due to first time nerves, but Elke won her game 3-0 with her usual solid performance. Sheila then won her match 3-1 but I was unable to win and lost 3-0. It was all down to Maureen who put in a very controlled performance and won the match for us beating her opponent 3-2.
Great Result!

In the afternoon we were up against Surrey who had beaten West Wales 5-0 in the morning session. Fiona went on but again was a little nervous and unfortunately lost 3-0, Elke could not weave her magic and lost 3-0 and Sheila, myself and Maureen followed suit and all lost 3 – 0 to a very strong Surrey team. So we had it all to do on Sunday.

Fuelled by a very nice cooked breakfast, we knew that we had to win against West Wales to stand a chance of avoiding relegation. Rachael went on and managed to control her nerves and won her match 3-1! Elke won her game 3-0 and as did Shelia, we had won the match. Maureen and I could not follow suit however and both lost 3-0.

Thinking we had done enough to remain in Division 1 we were happy, but unfortunately Devon had fielded a much stronger team than the previous day and only just lost 3-2 to Surrey, with some very tight games. At the end, when all the points were added up, Devon finished 8 points above us, even though we had won two of our matches and beaten Devon! Very unfair! Therefore we will be relegated to Division 2 next season.

I would just like to thank all the team for great weekend and for playing so well and I know that we will get promotion again next season.

Isobel Smith
Ladies County Captain
12th March 2007