Birch and Dodd claim island titles
IT WAS a hard-fought battle but Henry Birch eventually triumphed over Janick Radford to defend his island men's squash title.
In conjunction with some impressive victories from island women’s No. 1 Natalie Dodd, this made for an exciting show at the business end of the Ogier Island Squash Championships – although the competitive depth on display was another defining feature of this year’s competition.
In a well-contested final, Birch lost out in an initial tiebreaker opener but he kept his cool through the remaining games.
He soon stamped his dominance, taking the second game 11-4 and followed that up by taking the next two 11-8, 11-9 to emerge victorious for another year.
Among the ladies, there was no stopping Dodd as she dominated Danielle Parr in the final.
The champion cruised to an 11-4, 11-0, 11-2 victory to take the honours, also racking up the C Grade title for the year.
The standard of competition bodes well, according to a pleased development officer Martin Watts, with the Guernsey Open and inter-insular awaiting within the next two months and July’s return to Island Games action also a huge focus.
‘I think the A and B Grade competition is the strongest it has been for a number of years,’ said Watts.
‘Even for the first-round matches, they were very close, so it just shows the strength we’ve got in depth.
‘We also had quite a few juniors in the C Grade and D Grade so it’s nice to see we’ve got a future coming through.’
