Yorkshire Cadets completed their fourth successive county championship premier division title at Wellingbourough at the weekend and completed a double for the county who had also won the junior premier division earlier in the season.
The White Rose County team had seven straight wins but were chased all the way by a strong Kent side who completed the weekend two points adrift of the champions as Yorkshire had won the match when the counties met in the third round of matches on the first day.
Yorkshire started with a hard fought 6-4 victory against Middlesex and were endebted to their girls Jasmin Wong and Ruby Chan who were undefeated. With Ben Fillingham and Freddie Osenton Brown both beating Middlesex player Joshua Amanot it was the reigning champions who just scraped home.
This appeared to get the nerves out of Yorkshire who followed this up with a 10-0 win over Lancashire before what was already looking to be the clash of the top two teams as Yorkshire and Kent faced each other in the last match on Saturday.
When matches are played on two tables it is difficult to determine how the matches are progressing but once again the girls of Yorkshire shone and with Osenton Brown winning both his matches and No 1 Jonny Heslop chipping in with one win it was Yorkshire who took a 7-3 victory and top spot overnight.
Yorkshire were now in top gear and they started Sunday with a 9-1 win over Glamorgan and eased past Devon 10-0 before a match up with Nottinghamshire in what looked like a tricky clash as Notts had suffered a 9-1 thumping in their first match with Kent but had hit a run of form as they followed this up with four successive win.
Once again Wong and Chan were the foundation for Yorkshire, although Chan dropped the girls’ first set as she was beaten by Hannah Ward, but with all three Yorkshire boys chipping in with at least one win apiece and Osenton Brown picking up two wins it was the White Rose team who once again scored a 7-3 win and were in the driving seat as they held a two-point lead over Kent with one match remaining.
Only needing a point in their final match up with Surrey, Yorkshire showed no sign of slowing down as Surrey found out as they were on the receiving end of a 10-0 thumping as Yorkshire took the title in style.
It was a solid all round effort from the Yorkshire squad with the girls being the foundation as Wong was unbeaten with a 14/14 record which was only slightly better than the 13/14 record of Chan.
Osenton Brown was the start performer for the boys matching Chan’s 13/14 record and with Fillingham 10/14 from No 2 and Heslop 9/14 from the No 1 slot it was another well deserved title for the county and together with their junior premier division win things are currently looking good in Yorkshire.
At the other end of the table we say goodbye to Devonshire who had a hard weekend losing all their seven clashes and the other relegation spot is filled by Lancashire who ended the weekend on identical match points and sets as Surrey but the Southerners had a slightly superior games advantage over their Northern rivals.
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