Our 14U Girls County Cup, who had a direct entry to the National Finals, travelled to Nottingham for the three day event with the top 8 counties in the country taking part – Dorset, Hertfordshire, Lancashire, Kent, Middlesex, Surrey, Essex and Suffolk – split into two boxes.
Dorset were in a box with the much bigger counties, Hertfordshire, Middlesex and Lancashire. The team played 2 matches on the Friday, first up was v Middlesex. The team faced some tough opposition and although fought hard, lost the match 4-2. The second match v Lancashire was another tough one going to a tie-break shootout and with a calm performance from Dorset, they took the win.
Going into Saturday, the team had the last match in their box v the favourites and strongest team of the group, Hertfordshire, who having won both their matches the previous day, meant Dorset needed to win by a considerable margin and for the other result to go their way to stand any chance of coming top. Another hard fought match with 3 of the singles going to match tie-breaks but it wasn’t to be. Dorset came third in their group which meant on Sunday, they were playing for 5th/6th position against Kent, another huge county in comparison to Dorset.
Dorset very quickly took the first 3 singles matches and with a victory in one of the doubles giving a 4-2 win, Dorset finished 5th overall which for a county of our size and competing in the same event as the likes of Hertfordshire, Kent, Surrey, Middlesex etc is a phenomenal feat and matches the same as we did last year. With Daniella and Iraja able to play again next year and with Grace and Freya having two more years, the future looks bright for Dorset girls. Well done to all, a brilliant weekend.
A full report can be found here.
