Border Reivers 13-8 Colinton Castle 5
Graham Benstead 0-3 Mark Crease
This match was a lot closer than the score suggests, indeed Bensted was a tad unlucky as several shots from crease hit the wood of the racket or found the nick. It was a focussed performance by the Colinton man though; whenever Bensted got the Hand back he would dominate the rallies but just had no luck on this occasion, it was 15-9, 20-18, 15-12 to Crease
Del Sharratt 1-3 Bob Blaikie
In what was starting to become a bit of a rivalry, Bob Blaikie took this by the same scoreline as the rubber in the reverse fixture between the teams. The story was one player would rattle off 4-5 points then the opponent would do the same. Del was determined to triumph this time but just souldn’t find full length to get the ball past Blaikie. A good close fought match went 15-8, 11-15, 15-9, 15-11.
Peter MacKenzie 3-0 Adam Hill
Reivers newest member and making his debut for the team was Peter MacKenzie. Although Peter was no stranger to the Ease Leagues having previously played for Edinburgh Sports Club in league 2 a few years back. This was Peter’s first competitive squash outing for 5 years and he proved squash is just like riding a bike. MacKenzie was too skillful and powerful for the Colinton Castle Stalwart and ran off a pretty straight forward victory 15-13, 15-8, 15-10.
Pat Spence 3-2 Eric Donohue
The Senior most players of both sides put on a thriller of a match! Although there was over 120 years between the two of them, the fitness and speed was like that of much more youthful men. This was a close and well fought match. Lots of long rallies and deception in the shots made for a great spectacle for the watching fans. In the first game Spence took the lead 5-0 and held onto 12-8 but Donohue seemed to find focus and rattled of a series of excellent serves to take the first game 15-13. The second again was a similar story with Spence taking a 5-1 lead and maintaining it, this time Spence kept his nerve and found some handy drop shots at the right time to take it 15-8; in the third game Spence seemed to be in the Zone and Donohue ran for everything and the squash was spectacular as both players found the nicks and full length, this went to Eric 15-13 for a 2-1 lead. The last two games went to Spence as he just seemed to edge out Donohue on focus and determination, Spence seemed to want it more and took the last games 15-10, 15-4 for the 3-2 victory as Donohue just ran out of gas.
Tony Elliot 3-0 Michael Gibbs
The match was tied at 2-2 in rubbers so this tie would decide the victory, the pressure was on and the match was tense, both players started rather cagey and neither one wanted to make a mistake as some textbook down the wall shots and percentage shots were the way this started. Tony took the first 15-9 as Gibbs found the Borderer started the more determined; although the City Captain Michael fought valiantly he was no match for the Reivers top seed and Tony finished the a 3-0 rout with 15-11, 15-6.
Reivers Captain Del Sharratt said “ That was a great team effort, 10/10 for effort for the boys tonight. I’m glad we won as they beat us at their bit earlier in the season so we got one over them this time. It’s great to see new members like MacKenzie keen to play Team Squash too and hopefully the Reivers can kick on from this with a few victories.”