Ballymena host Mid-Ulster 'C'

Northwest League, Division 1, round 7, Ballymena v Mid-Ulster C

BALLYMENA Squash Club recently hosted Mid-Ulster C at the courts in Seven Towers Leisure Centre.

It proved to be a very tight encounter in their first League game of the new year.

Both teams of three won 6 out of 9 games each, but it is the order that they are won in that makes the difference to who wins the match.

The first game to conclude was the #3 seeds in court 2, where Stephen Smyth (Ballymena) played Emma Kells (Mid Ulster). Stephen started strongly taking the 1st game 11:3, but Emma dug in and won the next 11:9, 11:8, 11:7.

Meanwhile on court 1 Geoff Smyth (Ballymena) was playing Kirstin Livingston (Mid Ulster) for the 3rd time this year (they met at mid-Ulster in the Autumn away match and again during the NW invitational in Ballymena in January).

With honours even after the last two encounters, this was going to be the decider for this season (possibly).

The 1st game was a marathon, neither wanting to submit and running to a tie-breaker. The eventual score.... 17:15 to Ballymena.

The following two games had more exciting rallies but ended with more conventional score lines 11:9 and 11:7 in Ballymena's favour.

Finishing the night off on court 1 was Warren Smith (Mid Ulster) and Hugo Carlin (Ballymena). Hugo started strongly taking the 1st game 11:6. He seemed to have game 2 under control also, but Warren dug in and recovered to win in a tie breaker 13:11. Hugo bounced back with a dominant 11:3 win in game 3 and I have to be honest, I thought it was all over at this stage, however Warren found something from somewhere and delivered what must have been the come back of the year taking the next 2 games 11:7 and 11:8.

You can watch the action from court 1 (seed #1 + #2 matches) on the Ballymena Squash Club YouTube channel. Congratulations to Mid Ulster Squash Club who overtake Ballymena in the table, leading my just 1 point.

Invitation to Awards

Ballymena Squash Club have been honoured after their 1st year by invitations to two prestigious awards event in March.

The club will be represented by Hugo Carlin and Stephen Smyth (founding members of the club committee) at the Mid and East Antrim Council Sports awards in Galgorm Resort on 20 March.

Amd Mark McKane has been nominated as one of the finalists for the Squash Ireland volunteer of the year.

The winner will be announced along with other award categories at the Squash Ireland awards event in Fitzwilliam Lawn Tennis Club, Dublin after the Squash Ireland Masters Nationals tournament on 1 March.