Silver for Girls at British Primary Schools.
Wales players performed to a high standard at the British Primary Schools Championships held at Blackburn, Lancashire last weekend.
Representing Wales Boys were Ryan Oyler, Ashley Perry, Stefan Jeczalik and Alexandros Williams, (NPC Dave Treharne), whilst the Girls team consisted of Beth Roberts, Lauren Cundy, Laura Edwards and Sasha Denby
(NPC Joanne Clarke).
Friday night saw the start of the team event with the boys up against Scotland and the girls with seemingly the hardest fixture - England. The boys lost to Scotland who were the eventual winners, whilst the girls dug in with excellent performances by Laura and Sasha to draw their match with England.
Saturday dawned with everything to play for, the girls team narrowly missing out on gold by drawing with Ireland, but defeating all teams from the other countries.
The admittedly young boys team (3 of the team are eligable for next years championships) looked like as if they would struggle with 5 matches on the Saturday, but performed brilliantly ending up with their last match against England being crucial to the final team standings. A win would have seen them in the medals, unfortunately they managed a very creditable draw ending up in 4th place.
Sunday's performances in the individual tournament bettered that of Saturday, with everyone of the 8 players progressing through their group into the main event. The draw was quite cruel for the girls with the players meeting each other in 2 quarters and 1 semi final, meaning that only 1 Welsh girl would make the final; that was Beth Roberts, playing in the final against the overwhelming favourite Englands' Tin Tin Ho. Despite a confident performance with many excellent rallies Beth had to settle for silver.