Bexhillians Premier Table Tennis Club juniors Emily Koester, Oli Matthews and Leon Hyde who were chosen to represent Hastings and District Table Tennis Association in the National Junior League this year against teams from Tunbridge Wells, Sidcup, Surrey, Thanet and Chatham had their second round of matches on Sat 19th November at St Johns CEP School in Tunbridge Wells. Previously in October they had played in Division 2 and come second with wins against Chatham A 6-0, Thanet 5-1 and Cleeve Park Red (Sidcup) 5-1, a 3-3 draw against Byng Hall Red (Tunbridge Wells) and a 5-1 loss against Crusaders A (Surrey) and were promoted, along with Crusaders A who won the Division, to Division 1 for this session. Hastings began strongly with wins against Byng Hall Blue (Tunbridge Wells) 5-1 and Crusaders B (Surrey) 6-0 and then faced a rematch with Crusaders A who they had previously lost to and were currently unbeaten. Emily Koester was first up and faced Akal Dosanjh who was unbeaten and had previously beaten her three sets to two. She produced an outstanding performance winning three sets to two 11-13,9-11,11-4,14-12,4-11 and Oli Matthews then made it two nil with a fine win against Abiram Nagarajan 11-5,8-11,7-11,7-11. Leon Hyde and Oli Matthews then lost three sets to nil to make the match score two all and then Emily Koester produced another excellent performance beating Joseph O'Connor three sets to nil to restore the Hastings lead. In the deciding match Leon Hyde had to face Abiram Nagarajan who had previously beaten him three sets to one and produced an inspirational performance to turn a two sets to one deficit into a three sets to two win 10-12,11-9,11-7,8-11,6-11 with Hastings winning the match 4-2. They followed this with a 5-1 win against Cleeve Park Blue (Sidcup) and won their last match 6-0 against Chatham B meaning that they came top in Division 1 for this session with a total of 26 points and Crusaders A finished second with 25 points. Emily Koester was player of the match in four of their matches and was top of the playing averages for the session in Division 1 winning 10 out of 10 matches. Oli Matthews won 9 out of 10 matches and was player of the match once. Leon Hyde won 7 out of 10 matches and all of these players have been a credit to their coaches at Bexhillians TTC and to the Hastings and District League. They have two more sessions in the new year to see who wins the league and title overall.
