Blue Triumphs over Thornton in IOMSRA Elites Final
The IOMSRA staged the annual Elites and Masters tournament last week. This event incorporates a ‘Monrad’ tournament for the top 12 players that enter (Elite players) and round robin style tournaments for competitors that enter the Over 40’s, Over 50’s and Over 60’s age category events.
The Elites event generally went according to seeding and culminated in a final between StoneArt teammates Jason Blue and Hamish Thornton. However a special mention must go to Oliver Wait who performed really well to get to the third place play off match which he eventually lost 3-0 to Jason Crease.
The final between Jason and Hamish turned out to be a very entertaining match between youth and experience. Jason took the first game but Hamish came back to take the next two games only for Jason to win the fourth. At two games all and 5 all in the fifth game, the match could have gone either way but Jason stepped up and took the next six points to claim the Elites title.
The Over 40’s was won by Hamish Thornton, who doubled up his matches by playing in both the Elites and the Over 40’s. He got the better of runner up Dave Freer denying him even one game in his 3-0 victory.
Steve Baker won all his Over 50’s matches 3-0 and in doing so retained the Over 50’s trophy. The runner up was Dave O’Neill who himself won all his matches 3-0 with the exception of his final match against Steve. In this final Steve played his best squash of the tournament to limit Dave’s scoring and take the match in straight games.
Dave O’Neill did however enjoy some success by retaining his Over 60’s title. The runner up to him was his Merseyside Over 60’s team-mate Peter Sharples who fought hard but eventually lost by a score of 3-1 with Peter playing particularly well to take the second game.
The trophies and prizes were presented by Bill and Brian Karran who have sponsored the tournament for many years. The IOMSRA is very thankful to Bill and Brian for their long and continued support.
The photograph above is of competitors on the IOMSRA Elites and Masters Event.