The Eastern Province (EP) Top Schools squash play-offs were recently concluded with both the Kingswood College boys’ and girls’ 1st teams being crowned the Eastern Province Schools Squash Champions for 2014.
The Eastern Province (EP) Top Schools squash play-offs were recently concluded with both the Kingswood College boys’ and girls’ 1st teams being crowned the Eastern Province Schools Squash Champions for 2014.
The play-offs leading up to the final matches were tightly contested with a high standard of squash at school level.
The Kingswood girls 1st team experienced a resurgence in their squash during the latter part of the term due to a number of new players making themselves available to play squash. The girls performed well during the Dave Hodgson Squash Festival and produced good results against Collegiate, DSG, Clarendon and GHS. The team comprised Hannah Knott-Craig, Aimee-Leigh Pote, Madeleine Pierpont, Kiara Toich, Celeste du Toit, Jamie-Lee Stone, Conna van Blerk (reserve) and Emma Stirk (reserve).
The Kingswood girls were involved in a titanic play-off against a strong Alex Road High School team earlier this month, winning the fixture three games to two, qualifying for last week's Top Schools final against reigning champions, Collegiate. Each game was fiercely contested, but the Kingswood team prevailed and ran out victors five games to one, to be crowned the EP 2014 champions.
The Kingswood boys have followed a similar route but have been fortunate to have been exposed to more squash at a higher team level during the past few months, preparing them for this competition.
The team comprises Daine Kruger, Vaughan Meyer, David Jones, Joshua Thorburn, Travis Whitehead and Cassidy Daniels. They have participated in the Wynberg Stayers Festival and the FNB Invitational Festival playing against top squash schools in South Africa such as Saint John’s College (Johannesburg), Michaelhouse (Balgowne), Kearsney College (Kloof), Bishops (Cape Town), Grey High (Port Elizabeth), Pretroria Boys High (Pretoria), Wynberg Boys (Cape Town), Westville Boys (Durban), Invitational teams from Western Province and Boland (DISAS).
This was followed by the Dave Hodgson Squash Festival, which formed the first round of challenge matches for the boys’ EP Top Schools berth. Here Kingswood beat Queens College, Dale College, Selborne College and then fought hard in a tightly contested match against Grey High School. Kingswood was the eventual winner winning by four games to two.
This resulted in a final play-off against a strong, talented Framesby team.
In a tightly contested final the Kingswood 1st team was the eventual winner defeating Framesby three games to two. “The significance of this achievement is that the players were able to retain the title that they had won last year,” said master in charge of squash at Kingswoos, Ian Knott-Craig.
The organisers said it is possibly the first time in its 20-year-history that a co-educational school has both its 1st teams playing in the tournament simultaneously.
The national tournament will be hosted by Epworth in Pietermaritzburg in August, where Kingswood will represent EP.
“The College is proud of the fact that they produced 21 provincial school squash players last year and that they had three players ranked in the top ten nationally in the U16 age group by Squash SA,” said Knott-Craig.
Daine Kruger represented the South African U16 team in a squash tour to USA/Canada at the end of last year.
