Southland juniors serve up success

There were some excellent performances by Southland junior competitors at the South Island Teams event and Canterbury Open Table Tennis Championships in Christchurch recently.

The Southland teams competed well with the under-18 boys’ team of Damian Mitchell, Caleb Duffy, Andrew Fleming and Carl Rodmell and the U18 girls’ combination of Laura Geraghty and Holly Wu both reaching their age-group finals.

The U18 boys lost to Canter- bury 7-0 in their final, while Geraghty and Wu were also beaten by Canterbury 4-1, to finish runners-up in their respective grades.

There were also good individual results in the Canterbury Open with the ‘match of the tournament’ being Southland’s Andrei Casareo and Canterbury’s Joshua Kim winning the U13 boys’ doubles title 3-2 (11-8, 11-8, 7-11, 7-11, 16-14).

Southland coach Shelley Smith, was pleased with the team. ’’Our juniors showed great consistency, they did the basics and did them exceptionally well,’’ she said.

‘‘With table tennis being one of the fastest reaction sports in the world, it’s all about having a sharp mind as well as being physically fit.’’

‘‘With a movement of younger players coming through in the sport, our under18 players have been great role models with all of their hard work from training paying off.’’

Junior teams also represented Southland in the U15 boys’ and U13 boys’ age groups at the event, with a 37 junior teams competing from all over the South Island including Nelson, Marlborough, Canterbury, South Canterbury and Otago.