County Badminton Tournament

There were six teams in the U14 boys tournament, five in the U16 boys and five teams in the U14 Girls event and U16. The U16 boys’ team was a very strong team consisting of Saihaan Damani, Aaakash Ranjith, Charles Bomford, Monty Bage and Akshith Pandian and we went into the event with full confidence. The boys started very well with a tight game against William Farr but managed to overcome them and then won easily against Holbeach school. This left Kings Grantham and LSST, two schools renowned for their racket sports. The boys fought hard against both and narrowly lost 3-2 to both schools but performed excellently throughout the morning. The U14 team were new to this event and slowly grew into the required level of play, often learning from making earlier unforced errors in shots and communicating better in their doubles matches. The team eventually came third but will have learnt a significant amount about how to improve their play by facing these tough opponents. The team was Kirithik Mohan, Harshil Kadire, our silent assassin, Srikar Puppalla and Viganth Rg.

The U16 girls had a last-minute recruit in super sub Rishita Dutta to complete their veteran team of Mary, Queen of the Rackets Pepper, Honor Moore and Kiki Timmins. This wonderful group of girls have represented the school throughout their time at Bourne and have shown resilience, determination, fantastic team spirit and sportsmanship in all matches. They placed third but lost many matches by very small margins and know the improvements they have all made across the years.

The U14 girls team were hot favourites after warming up and seeing the opposition at the event but it’s all about conversion. They destroyed Holbeach only giving away 8 points out of 55 in their match and Vale Academy who had two quite accomplished players. The team led by Aarikha was focussed on the job throughout and when facing LSST and some dubious line calls remained calm and found a way to win matches. This led to the important game against our arch-rival’s KGGS. Proud Vichathum started the match with a superb match against their number 1 player but narrowly lost despite some spectators making comments about how on earth could two young girls hit the shuttle so hard and be so accurate. The fantastic doubles pairing of Maddy Hobson and Abi Lakin evened things up leaving Aarikha in her singles match to show KGGS how to win a match. Sadly we lost the Proud and Maddy doubles leaving the outcome of the game on a knife edge. The score was 2-2 in games, and it all went down to Aarikha and Abi vs KGGS final doubles pairings. The two girls held their nerve throughout superbly even when mine was in tatters and went on to win easily leading us to County glory.

What was lovely to see at the end was the sportsmanship and friendships formed in the informal games played between schools after the event was over