Grange 4ths vs Dean 2nds. 3rd November 2009.

The growing strength in depth of the Grange club was very evident last night when a 4th team that had three withdrawals on the day before the match was able to call on further players at short notice and still defeat a capable Dean 2nd side by 19 points to 4 in their inaugural meeting (inaugural meaning that neither Dean nor Grange have had that many teams before….).

First up at No 5 was Will Henderson against team squash debutante Andrew Johnston. Will played a very strong match all the way through and was always in control against Andrew who played very well in patches but looked to have a few first match nerves to deal with. Might have to watch those foot faults though….a couple of them involved neither foot within six inches of the box. 9-2, 9-1, 9-2.

At No 3 Neil Love took on Ronnie Hynds and likewise was in control for the majority of the game, particularly at the front of the court. Ronnie began to ramp up some serious resistance in the 3rd game but Neil went up a step in response and closed it out. 9-1, 9-3, 9-5.

At No 2 Andy Whitelaw ran out a 3-0 winner against Mark Macefield. Very tight and controlled squash from Andy saw him maintain his 100% record for the season so far. Mark took him to a tie-break in the second but Andy successfully defended that and resumed dominance in the third. 9-1, 10-8, 9-2.

At No 4 Pete Young took on Derek Mills after having come over direct from a 5 setter mini-league match. Pete has a good record against Dean sides and so it proved again with plenty of tricksy hobbit shots to keep Derek constantly on his toes and often on the back foot. Derek rose to the challenge with a convincing 9-3 defeat of Pete in the third but Pete turned on the heat in the 4th to run out a winner. 9-4, 9-2, 3-9, 9-0.

The main entertainment of the night (at least in sporting script and closeness of contest terms) was provided by the No 1s Mark Dutton and Craig Wallace. A perfectly executed corkscrew serve in the opening minute looked like it might set the scene for some fun … but some not so perfect ones in the rest of the match may better be left unreported. The first game was hard fought and went Mark's way 9-7 after Craig had led for much of it. A similar story in the second and third with the lead changing hands several times in each game with Craig taking both, primarily through some excellent drop shots to the backhand corner which Mark had little answer to. Mark changed tactics in the fourth game and managed to keep Craig away from the deadly front corner and in the back of the court for much of the game. The fifth game saw the lead change a number of times as well with Craig's dropshots coming to the fore once more. Mark began hanging back too much (some say through fading fitness…some say in resignation at his own disbelief that he kept feeding Craig's forehand drop) and that gave Craig enough chance to close it out 10-8 after a few exchanges of serve at 8-8. A good hard match that could have gone either way….and did. 9-7, 5-9, 7-9, 9-6, 8-10.

A great result at 19-4 to the Grange. Big top of the table match at Waverley next week….