The weekend of 5th and 6th April saw Pétanque England hold the men’s and women’s triples qualifying events down in Worthing. The men competing were aiming to be the England national team at the European Championships in Spain this July. While the women were playing to earn the right to be the England national team at the World Championships in October, which is being held at the magnificent Boulodrome du Douaisis in France.
The all Kent foursome of Dean Ashby, Rowland Jones, Scott Ashby & Jason White had a superb series and won all fourteen of their matches, crowning them overall champions! It wasn’t all plain sailing though, in the very first match of the weekend they found themselves 1-10 down, but dug deep and showed their quality to get back into the game and win 13-11. Another key match on the Saturday afternoon was against fellow Kent member Kai Sheffield‘s team, the team that turned out to be their main rivals in the series. It was an epic affair, with the score and momentum, seesawing back and forth through the match, with the Kent boys eventually claiming a well fought 13-12 win! Sunday was more straight forward, with some big wins setting up a final match against Kai‘s team, which saw the all Kent team run out 13-8 winners to claim the top spot, with Kai finishing runner up.
In the women’s event, Becky Edwins teamed up with Chiltern players Ella Slade & Sarah Huntley. The Saturday was convincing with the team winning 5 out of 6 matches to win the first day. Alex Spillett was also playing in the event, with Lori Welden & Sabrina Seville, and finished the first day in second place with a solid 3 wins out of 5. Things didn’t quite go to plan on the Sunday morning for Becky‘s team, only winning 1 of 3 matches, meanwhile Alex‘s team started to show their quality winning all 3 morning games. They continued this fine form to win the next two, leaving them on 5 out of 5 wins going into the final game. Becky‘s team rallied at lunch and came back stronger, also winning the next 2 matches. The way the ranking system worked, meant that the final match of the day was Becky v Alex and the winner would take all! Becky, Ella & Sarah started strong and didn’t let up, winning the match 13-2, which saw them win the series by just 1 ranking point!
The KPA wishes both the England Men & Women luck at their respective international competitions later in the year!
