Badminton Mixed
Time: Friday 11am
Location: Main Hall
Points: York 4
York’s quest to regain the Roses title began in convincing fashion with a dominating performance in the main hall, as the mixed badminton team overwhelmingly defeated Lancaster, completing an 8-1 overall victory.
In the first scheduled event on campus, York were clearly intent on getting the job done and proved that this year they will not be a pushover. They quickly raced into a 3-0 lead, with 1sts pair Jonty Hiley and Sarah Myers showing the way, winning all three of their rubbers.
They were very rarely pushed to their full ability, only losing one end in the whole tournament, and set the standard for the rest of the team to follow. Despite a disappointing performance by 2nds pair Paddy Clarke and Lindsay McCann in their rubber versus the Lancaster duo of Greg Turtle and Lauren Thomas, York refused to take their foot off the gas and continued to ply pressure on the under-achieving Lancaster team.
Rob Walker and Nicci Farr, York’s 3rd pair, worked especially hard, combining deft touches with audacious smashes to win well in their three ties. At a time when AU President Tom Moore was urging the players to take it easy so as to be ready for the fixtures later in the afternoon, these two pushed on to record a very special win over Lancaster’s 1sts team, winning 21-15 in the third and final end.
Hiley, after it was all wrapped up, was very pleased with York’s performance, and said: “They [Lancaster] played with the same team last year and beat us convincingly, so it’s very nice to turn it around. We’ve sent out a message.”
Clarke was in complete agreement with this. He said: “Our first game was poor but we just needed to warm up. I think we played pretty well.” When asked on the topic of York’s chances of winning Roses 2007 the belief was resounding: “We have a very good chance. There is much hype surrounding Lancaster but we should win.”
