Jesters squash titles for Ward and Mitchell

GREY High scholar Gerard Mitchell completed the perfect tournament by not dropping a game on the way to annexing the Eastern Province Jesters U23 men’s squash title at Crusaders yesterday.

Mitchell was joined on the winner’s podium by NMU student Hayley Ward, who won the women’s round-robin section for her second straight Jesters title.

Mitchell, 17, came up against school colleague Dean Venter in the final, but proved too sharp for his 14-year-old opponent on the day, completing his fourth 3-0 win at the weekend.

There were a number of minor upsets, but the big surprise of the event came with Venter’s elimination of top seed Murray Schepers in the quarterfinals.

Seeded eight, the talented Venter has established himself as the top player nationally in his age-group and showed he was ready to tackle older opponents.

Schepers came back well from that setback to finish fifth overall, winning his final two matches.

Venter was not able to repeat his heroics in the final, as Mitchell combined superb movement with fine shot control.

The younger player had a glimpse in the second game when he levelled at 9-9 after trailing 9-7, but Mitchell soon snuffed that out to take a telling 2-0 lead.

He built an advantage in the third and then there was no way back for Venter.

Ward’s biggest test in the A pool came yesterday morning when she faced last year’s runner-up, Bianca Brown.

Brown could have taken the first game but instead it went the way of Ward – and she never looked back.

The champion extended her unbeaten record by defeating Danell Douglas in her final match, to clinch another title.

Brown came second in the pool.