This year we welcomed two new schools – Zwartkop (Northerns) and Paarl Gimnasium Boland(girls) who qualified for the first time. EP did not send a girls team so Epworth were invited and Maritzburg College joined when Paarl Hoerskool withdrew. The teams were divided into two sections and then moved into a pool with the top four and lower 4 teams. All the finals rounds were played on Saturday morning and with this format no school plays each other twice.
Only two venues were used, Epworth and Maritzburg College, so the teams were in close proximity to each other. The tournament ran very smoothly and was played in very good spirit, the competition was fierce with all players playing their hearts out. As always, there were some outstanding matches as many of the teams had SA players at No 1, 2 and 3 and both the boys and girls matches were very close, with many matches going to the wire and matches lasting up to 4 hours.
SA TOP SCHOOLS RESULTS
This was the 37th Top Schools squash tournament and as expected, the standard of squash was high both in the boys and girls sections. Generally the standard of marking was good and it appears that most provinces are running good marking clinics. It does help if schools ask senior players to assist them in tournaments leading up to Top schools – at this level players should know the rules but often interpret them differently.
The boys section 1 was very closely contested with Selborne (Border) edging out St Andrews (Free State) – each team scoring 9 points but Selborne winning 3 matches. Zwartkop (Northerns) dominated Section 2 with Grey High (EP) beating KES (Gauteng) in a closely contested match to come second.
The final round was going to be tough with many teams in contention. Zwartkop won the tournament but had to fight hard against St Andrews and Grey High. St Andrews came second on a point count out from Selborne, who came third.
Midstream(Gauteng) dominated the tournament and dropped one match throughout the weekend. This team had 4 SA ranked players led by Awande Malinga a top SA Player. St Annes(KZN) defeated Epworth 3/ 2 to take second place followed by Epworth (Invitation) third.
Girls
1 Midstream (Northerns)
2 St Annes (KZN)
3 Epworth (Invitation)
4 Clarendon (Border)
5 Paarl Gimnasium (Boland)
6 Herschel (WP)
7 St Marys (Gauteng)
8 Eunice (Free State)
Boys
1 Zwartkop Hoer (Northerns)
2 Selborne (Border)
3 St Andrews (Free State)
4 Grey High School (EP)
5 KES (Gauteng)
6 Michaelhouse (KZN)
7 Rondebosch (WP)
8 Maritzburg College (Invitation)
