Last night was the climax to one of the closest divisions ever in the league. With only one game to play, things were finely poised in Mixed Division 2 and it literally was a “winner takes all” scenario.
Our Mixed 2 team headed to Emerson Park to play against Emerson Eagles in a league decider. Whoever won the match, won the division and secured promotion. With the prospect of playing our Mixed 1 team next season, we were eager to get things started.
However, with the warm weather during the day taking it’s toll on the hall, conditions inside were not ideal for badminton with the temperature a bit too high for my comfort.
The pairs for us were:-
Lesley / Gary
Jess / David
Penny / Ross
Things didn’t start too well for me and Penny against Emerson’s third pairing. They are very young but played exceptionally well together and we just couldn’t find a way through. Given some luck going their way with some of the net shots clipping the net and dropping over, we feared luck was going to continue to be against us. It proved right. Some silly mistakes by me and some good play by Emerson and we lost the first game by quite a wide margin. The second game was going the same way but a late charge by us brought the score back to 19-20. However, a miss hit from me hit the net and it was game over.
The second match for Penny and I was against a former member of Corinthians and his partner. He’s a strong player and we knew we had to play well to stand a chance. However, we just couldn’t seem to get into gear. On top of that, I reached for a shot to play a slow drop and tweaked a muscle in my shoulder. Whilst I could play on, I couldn’t smash, clear or drive the shuttle and had to rely on playing tricky drop shots. It was all to no avail as we lost the first game and then the second in quick succession.
The other pairs faired a bit better with Lesley and Gary taking all of their matches to 3 games. However, Emerson were just too strong for us and they had the win wrapped up in no time. I had to concede our third match against their first pairing so as not to damage my shoulder more.
Final result of the night was a resounding win to Emerson by 8-1. They finish top of the league on 11 points and are promoted to Division 1. Unbelievably we actually finish bottom of the league on 8 points (tied with United Shuttlers). Wychelm finish second on 9 points. With all four teams being separated by only 3 points, it has been a very close season indeed. We have actually won the most matches in the league but due to the scoring, we couldn’t capitalise on it. All of our wins have been 5-4 so whilst we get 2 points for those, the opponents also get 1 point. We need to be more ruthless next season and secure the bonus league points by winning 6-3 or better. It’s rather disappointing knowing that you won more matches than everyone else but still finish bottom of the league!
– Ross
