NYCA U14 Tournament: 19th November 2006, Solihull
After some last minute substitutions due to illness, the U14 team took the now familiar trek to Solihull to compete in the NYCA U14 Tournament. The 12 man team went into the first round with high expectations, however after the first round found themselves in 3rd place with 8 points. We had 3 losses and 2 draws in the round and were feeling rather uncomfortable with our performance. Hertfordshire were in 1st place on 10 points and Kent on 8.5 points in 2nd place. The 2nd round Sussex (at least remained consistent) and scored another 8 points. Kent had a very good round of 10 points and led with 18.5 points to our 16. Herts had slipped to 15.5 and now in 3rd place.Time for action as we knew the team could do better so after a call to Jonathan and a stern team talk from John Linnett the players began to focus on what was needed. The whole time now was spent in the team room and what a difference that made as a magical 12 points out of 12 was achieved in the 3rd round. Suddenly the team was back in business and in 1st place on 28 points with Kent on 27 and just 1 point behind. Another
stern
team talk and the boys went into the final round knowing they
had to perform
at their best to remain in 1st place. Alex and Thomas had the 2
crucial games against Kent in the final round. Both had early wins which
soothed the nerves in the team room. A wonderful 10 points achieved
in the
last round to bring their score up to 38 points maintaining 1st
place and
a full 3 points ahead of Kent on 35 points.Hertfordshire coming
in
3rd place An interesting point is that 7 of the team today were also in the winning u11 team 3 years ago.That is quite a testimony to the success of the Sussex Junior Chess. The team were: David Grant, George Salimbeni, Alex Galliano, Rhys Cumming,
Chris Linnett, Jude Lenier, Zi-Xuan Gu, Josepg Quinn, Farris Ziyada,
Ben Silverstein, Matthew Payne, & Thomas Fitzgerald. |
