Hartlepool Sixth Form College will face Cirencester on Wednesday in the national cup semi-finals
Hartlepool Sixth Form College’s badminton team can feel “very proud”, according to their team manager, after they suffered defeat in the national cup semi-finals.
The result means Hartlepool finish as one of the top four teams in the country after they were beaten 8-2 by a “very good” Cirencester College in the Association of Colleges National Cup.
Team manager and teacher at the College, Steven Bell said: “Obviously I am very proud of the team.
“They got there through hard work, and earned their place there.
“You are in the competition to compete against the best and obviously we’ve come up against a very good team today, and we didn’t get the result we wanted, but I can’t fault the effort and commitment.”
The Hartlepool team made up of Felix Fan, Hongyi Xie, Sam Henry, Adam Bramley, Daniel Tucker, Victoria Murray, Mischa Macaskill, Kate Brown and Lauren Harrington matched the college’s 2012 efforts with their fourth placed finish.
Hartlepool Sixth Form’s Mischa Macaskill in singles action
Bell said: “It’s no small feat getting to a national semi-finals in any sport and it’s an excellent achievement.
He continued: “The players can feel really really proud of what they have achieved and hopefully next year we can look to build on it and maybe go a bit further.”
Brown and Macaskill won their women’s doubles match 21-12 21-19, with Hartlepool’s second win coming as a result of a concession from the visitors.
Bell said after the match that the result was fair but believed some of the games could have gone either way.
He said: “Everybody played good games, whether or not they played their best is one of those things, but they all put 100 per cent in and there was some tight games.”
In the mixed doubles the Hartlepool pair of Brown and Bramley were narrowly beaten in three ends with the match including a marathon first end, won 30-28 by the home side.
Elsewhere, Felix Fan and Hongyi Xie were beaten 21-16 21-5 and 21-6 21-9 respectively in the men’s singles.
Hartlepool Sixth Form College’s Hongyi Xie in action
In the women’s singles Murray and Macaskill were both beaten in two ends, the men’s doubles saw 21-10 21-13 defeats for both Henry and Bramley, and Fan and Xie, while the final mixed doubles match ended in 21-19 21-9 defeat for Tucker and Harrington.
Bell said the year had been a “very good” one for the college team and hopes the positive performances can continue into next year.
He added: “We are losing about 50 per cent of the team who are going off to university so I think we’re going to have four members of the current team. It just depends on students coming into the college.”
Cirencester will now compete in the final held in Wycombe on March 18 and Bell wished the side luck for the match adding that “it would be nice” to be beaten off the eventual champions.
“If you ever get knocked out of a competition, then to get beat off the champions you feel as though you have been beaten by the very best.”
North East Badminton 