Dargaville upset Kamo for place in nationals

A trip to Tokoroa may not sound like the best of prizes but Dargaville were thrilled to earn a spot at the Men's E grade nationals in the South Waikato township this  year, after upsetting the top seeds at the Super Champs at the Kamo Squash Club.
Saturday began as predicted, with top-seeded Whangarei downing Mangakahia in all five matches, although not all encounters were plain sailing. Number-one players Mark Lindsay of Whangarei and Nick Chapman of Mangakahia took their match to five sets, with Lindsay eventually winning 9-7.
Mangakahia had the toughest draw and had to follow up that battle by immediately playing Dargaville.
At two matches apiece, it was down to No4 players, Dargaville's Rod Harding and Mangakahia's Adrian Green, to decide the tie. Harding won 9-7 in the fourth set to set up the highly-anticipated showdown with Whangarei.
The match of the tie was between Whangarei's Naina Ruawhare and Dargaville's Brad Johnsen. They took over an hour to decide their match in a hard fought five-setter, with Johnsen gaining the first point for Dargaville 9-3, 9-6, 8-10, 7-9, 9-3.
Greg Prinsloo took the first game and it seemed  Whangarei may be back on track, but Richard Anderson came back strongly to take the next three games and the favourites were two down.
So when Mark Lindsay took the court he was under pressure to save the day for Whangarei. Although he lost the first two games, it appeared he was still well in the match, holding game ball in the third with his opponent Andre De Bruin visibly tiring. But De Bruin was brutal in his determination to clinch the series for Dargaville and came back to win 10-8 thereby gaining  a trip to Tokoroa for his team.
Kamo's top seeding meant  little in the D grade men's straight final against Kerikeri as the points and grades of the players were close.  So it proved, with results swaying from one team to the other.
First up were regular  rivals Sean Prinsloo and Claude Shepherd, with Kamo's Prinsloo prevailing on this occasion in three sets. Bernard Kidd succumbed in five sets to Kerikeri's Alan Rockell. Lester Rivers gambled on his form, arriving back from overseas only hours before taking the court, and was lucky to take his match over Peter Sievers to put Kamo in the lead again.
Kerikeri's Tony Purnell kept his team in the match, with a no-nonsense victory over Wayne Pepperell.
The final match and the trip to Henderson rested on the shoulders of Neil Smith and Kerikeri's
Murray Nock. Smith took the early lead and refused to lessen the pressure, and while Nock threatened briefly in the second game, Smith won convincingly.