OKEHAMPTON squash teams both went down to defeat against teams from Newton Abbot in this week’s matches.

While the first team suffered a narrow loss against Newton Abbot, the second team went down to a larger loss to Newton Abbot five.

For the first team the match started with Shawn Jones filling in at string four and performing well to win a close match 3-2. Shawn’s superior fitness and effective, clever shots were too much for his opponent. At string three Dan Yeoman played a highly experienced opponent who had too much variety of shot and hit good width and depth, losing 1-3. 

Phil Allin at string two won another close match 3-2. Using his fitness and movement round the court, he ground down his opponent to come away with the victory. Another great performance from Phil Kemsley — maintaining his 100% win record this season — in the deciding match at string one lost 1-3, losing against an opponent who played a good short game. Despite having chances to win the third game Kemsley could not convert the chances created. So a 2-3 defeat for Oke, losing 8-18 in points and a first defeat of the season for the first team.

The second team played a strong Newton Abbot five who are favourites for promotion. Okehampton were largely outclassed. At string five Jack Barkwell could not find his normal length of shot and although fighting back in the third game, eventually went down 1-3.

At string four, Chris Elphick again could not get his normal game going and his experienced opponent used variety in his game to unsettle Elphick’s pattern for a 1-3 loss. At strings three and two both Stuart Lord and Shane Vallance went down to heavy losses 0-3, while at string one Shawn Jones fought hard against a big opponent who dominated the court space. Jones eventually going down 1-3.

So a heavy 20-3 defeat for the second team, who knew that they were up against a strong opponent and were kept at arms length by the experienced team.