6 March 2018
Today Abingdon hosted King Edward’s Birmingham and Wycliffe School in a triple header. This was the last round of the Nationals, with the winner going through to the final.
Abingdon played KES first in an exciting match. Nikhil Vyas and Hector Chambers lost out against strong opponents, but Will Pearson, Will Taylor and Ben Goriely-McDonald all won hard matches to achieve an excellent 3-2 victory.
Wycliffe Squash Academy is the top school in the country. They played KES next and beat them in fairly short order. We then took them on in the decider. Hector was struggling with injury, so Will Taylor stepped up to play at 3, Ben moved up to 4, and Ed Pettitt came in at 5. Ed played an outstanding match to win it 3-0. Ben and Will Taylor played hard games, but lost out to very fine players. Will Pearson took on an U17 international at 2, and played so well that he almost took a game from him. Nikhil then played their number 1, who is the current England U17 champion. Nikhil played superbly, especially in the third game, in which he only went down 9-11. Wycliffe go through to the final, but it was an outstanding run for Abingdon, and with our young players we have exciting prospects in the coming years.
