A young Berkshire Junior team have won the County Championships Division 1B in some style, winning all seven of their matches in the process.
Starting out in Okehampton, Berkshire played well in beating Cornwall (8-2), Glamorgan (9-1) and finally hosts and eventual League runners-up Devon (7-3) in an exciting encounter. Liam McTiernan and Daniel Moses remained undefeated, whilst Jarred Knowles only lost once - to the Dorset number 1, Dominic Sussex.
The girls, Megan Knowles and Maria Tsaptsinos, found it more difficult as they were up against several highly ranked English and Welsh juniors. Nevertheless, both played with a lot of determination in winning four and three out of six matches respectively. Megan’s important 3-2 victory over Devon’s Vicky Smith was the most impressive win of the day by any Berkshire player.
The championship continued in Bristol where 11 year old Daniel McTiernan got his first start, winning both his matches against Dorset, the second over Patrick Hurley 3-2 having saved four match points. After several other close matches, including a 3-2 win for Liam over Dorset’s No 1 Hugo Pang, Berkshire eventually secured a comprehensive 10-0 win.
This was followed up by two more highly impressive maximum 10-0 victories against Avon and Essex 2, which left a match with a strong looking Surrey team for the title.
Berkshire started brightly with Liam and Jarred winning by three sets to nil against Marcus Giles and Anthony Patten receptively. This was followed up by an excellent brace of wins for Megan and from that point on the side never looked back, winning the match 9-1 and with it the Championship.
This is the second year running that that Berkshire have gained promotion and with just one player (Daniel Moses) dropping out due to his age, they will go into next season with confidence.
Royal County of Berkshire Junior Secretary, Adam McTiernan, has congratulated the players and sent his thanks to the parents for their support of the team.
