U25 Result v Warwickshire

It was a case of ‘what could of been’ for the County young guns in their Under 25 Double Fours semi final against a strong experienced Warwickshire squad at Scunthorpe. Following the quarter final success over last year’s runners up Lincolnshire the Durham line up was unchanged.

The Vipers Layton Sykes led in for Hartlepool’ s Conrad Morrison with club mate Matthew Mosley at second and Darlington’s Alex Wood third, they were pitted against England international Tom Holmes who had fellow international and current outdoor woman’s singles champion Izzy White alongside Lily-Mae Adams and Hannah Smith completing the quartet. It was the Warwickshire four who came out the blocks fast racing to a 15-2 lead after nine ends.

Meanwhile the other Durham four, Hartlepool’s Amica Fordy fresh from her British Isles fours success leading in for Niall Thompson with his Darlington club mate Abi Porter at two and Hartlepool’s Marcus Mosley third also got off to  a slow start against Aden Maries trailing 6-10 after nine ends leaving the Durham squad seventeen shots adrift the half way mark. The Durham young guns fought hard over the next few ends to stay in the game and the fightback started on end sixteen as Durham scored seven shots across the two rinks.  That was the encouragement the octet needed and the momentum swung, a return of 23 shots to 4 in Durham’s favour set up a nail biting finale. The Thompson quartet who were two ends ahead picked up two counts of five in their final few ends were left to rue a fortunate result from the Warwickshire’s skips final bowl which clipped a wide bowl into the head removing the Durham shot bowl and sneak a treble leaving Thompson 25-21 up.

That result left the other Durham rink searching for four shots over his last two ends, after narrowly missing a shot which could of scored a four or five Morrison had to  settled for a two and search for a repeat on the final end. As expected the nerves and tension were at an all time high, a place in the National final was up for grabs Durham lying shot with just the skips left to play; Warwickshire skip Holmes fresh from his England senior debut only 48 hours previously drew a close second shot and closed the head down narrowing the distance Morrison had with his final bowl and that was enough as the young Durham skip fell two foot short to finish 22-17 down leaving Warwickshire 43-42 up overall. In the final Warwickshire will play Kent who overcame Hampshire 46-27.

One of the many positives the lads and lasses take away is only one member of this year’s squad is too old to play in the competition next year so the young guns will go again with the added experience from this and they have proved that they certainly have the ability for the next step. (report credit David Sykes)