St Bees Invitational 2024: Cumbria's Weekend In The Sun
25/06/24: The second edition of the St Bees Invitational Tournament took place on the world's most northerly Fives courts at the weekend.
A selection of St Bees staff, pupils and guests enjoyed a fantastic sunny couple of days. The standard of play among the school players is going up all the time and there were some excellent matches played over the course of the weekend.
Two mini tournaments were played, using timed matches and mixing and matching partners and opponents. The Saturday tournament saw the school's senior players showcasing their skills and was a thriller with the qualification places for the final changing hands on several occasions during the course of the final round of matches. Late runs of points meant schol Fives captain Andrei unluckily missing out on the spot in the final his play throughout the afternoon deserved, while Master-in-Charge Laurence Gribble pipped Charlotta Cooley and Stefan Nowinski to the last available place with a last gasp victory in his court. The final then saw Mark Yates & Bobby overcoming Laurence & Philippe before some pre-dinner ice creams and swimming down at the beach.
With some of the senior players away on a DofE expedition on Sunday, there was a chance for other to shine and this time round it was experienced Year 12 Suproto and Year 7 newcomer Kal who claimed the two school spots in the final, Suproto & Natalie Lilienthal taking the Sunday honours ahead of Ian Mitchell & Kal.
Thank you to Laurence Gribble, Brad Simpson and everyone at St.Bees for making us all so welcome; if you'd like to come along and join in next year, let