U13 Table Tennis Team through to Regional Finals

Congratulations to our U13 Table Tennis boys who performed exceptionally well last weekend  at the English Schools National Team Championships and now have a chance of making the National Final!

Our U/13s Boys’ team of Rhys Davies, Nick Moustaka, Chris Moustaka and Harry Griffiths did very well in the Zonal finals at Blackburn, winning their category and progressing into the 16 in the country.

The Zonal Final comprised 5 county champions representing Merseyside, Cheshire, Greater Manchester, Lancashire and Shropshire and was played in a round-robin format with the top 2 progressing into one of 4 Regional Finals to be held on the first weekend in March.

Each match comprises 8 individual matches played as best of 5 sets with each set being the 1^st to 11 points. Individual matches were played on 2 adjacent tables and there is a set order of play with each team playing their respective Number 1’s against the opposition No.2’s and then likewise with the Number 3’s and 4’s. After these are completed the 2^nd matches see the Number 1’s against each other with Number 2’s now playing the Number 3’s and then the Number 4’s playing each other in the final match. It can get quite complicated!

Our 1^st match was against the host school St. Bede’s (Blackburn) and we got off to a fantastic start winning the match 8-0 with Nick Moustaka battling back from 2 sets down to win his opening match. Our next match was against The Marches School, Oswestry who had also won their opening match. This proved to be a much tougher battle but we were able to win 6-2 with Chris Moustaka this time coming from 2-0 down to win a key match. After a break we then faced Wade Deacon High School, Widnes who had a few players known us from other competitions in the region. Another 8-0 victory with Nick again winning an epic 5 set battle and Rhys providing the performance of the day beating their No. 1 player 11-0, 11-0, 11-2!

Our final match against Altrincham Grammar would be the decider as they had won all their matches – the opening battles set the tone with Rhys winning easily and Nick again claiming a 5 set thriller only to be matched by his brother, Chris. We eventually ran out 6-2 winners and qualified in 1^st place for the Regional Finals. In the Regional finals we will be in a Group of 4 with only the winners progressing to the National Final – Our Players produced some excellent results – Rhys Davies won 8/8, Nick Moustaka 7/8, Christ Moustaka 8/8 and a very impressive Harry Griffiths 5/8 – Harry has only been playing since September but has made significant progress to be able to compete at this level.

Before the next stage of this competition the boys will do battle against each other (and many of their club mates) for the Merseyside Individual Schools Title on Saturday February 4^th at Anfield Sports & Community Centre – only the winner progresses to the National Finals.