Under 16’s Top the League (Report from Graham Oram – Boys U16’s Manager)
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Having travelled to Royal Norwich the previous weekend, the U16’s wound up their triangular series of matches on Sunday, at Welwyn Garden City, against Norfolk and Suffolk. The results at each venue were the same with our boys’ achieving victories over Suffolk and managing two hard fought draws against Norfolk.
The final league table puts Hertfordshire on 10 points, Norfolk on 7points and Suffolk on 1point. The boys now advance to the Regional Finals at Haywards Heath on 28th September.
The fixture at Royal Norwich witnessed four league debutants, with each of them contributing to the overall points tally. Lewis Salthouse (West Herts) was in sparkling form winning both his matches. Joe Kaye (Moor Park) gained a win against Suffolk and there were important halves from Oliver Ockleford (Moor Park) and Alfie Kitteridge (Bishop’s Stortford) in their matches against Norfolk. Little did we know, at the time, how valuable those two half points would be.
Eight days later in glorious sunshine at Welwyn Garden City, we had four changes in our lineup and knew, despite home advantage, that the matches were not going to be easy.
The final score line shows that we defeated Suffolk 6-2, but that doesn’t indicate the closeness of some of the individual matches, with three going to the final hole.
The first two matches to finish against Norfolk were comfortable victories for William Paas (Knebworth) and Louis Batrick-Wren (Bishop’s Stortford).
Anxious frowns started to appear as the next three matches to be concluded were successes for Norfolk. The tension was eased when Coby Arazi (Dyrham Park) was victorious on the 15th and a 4-4 draw was achieved when George Lancaster (Sandy Lodge) secured his victory on the 17th hole.
Hertfordshire have enjoyed their encounters this season against their opponents from East Anglia, which have been played in a wonderful spirit and it is with a touch of sadness that, because of the rotational system of the leagues, we will not be playing them again at this level until 2028.
