Day 3 of teams - showdown with the USA

The USA and Canadian teams were ranked #5 and #4 respectively at the start of the junior women’s team tournament. Day#3 saw these two rivals playing off for first and second place in their pool and similar battles for top spots in the other pools.
It was an exciting competition with Sam and Amanda Sobhey playing first in a seesaw battle. Amanda started strong and took advantage of a couple of tinned drop shots by Sam. Then Sam poured on the power with excellent cross court drives, hard down the wall length and some excellent drops. She won the first game about 11-6. The second game continued the trend but was much closer. Amanda has an excellent volley and she continually used the volley to drive Sam deep and then hit solid kills. Sam countered with hard crosses and drops. She eventually won the game 12-10. In the third and fourth games, Amanda controlled the‘t’ beautifully with her volleys to length and to kill the ball and Sam did all of the running. Amanda won both games to set up a great 5th game.
The final game was a seesaw with Amanda continuing to pressure Sam with excellent volleys and volley drops. Sam’s dying length got better during the game and the rallies got longer with lots of great retrieving by both players. Sam hit a couple of tins on kills in the middle of the game to give Amanda a 9-5 edge and then it was 10-6 on a great kill by Amanda. Sam fought back but Amanda won 11-8 to take the match.
The second game was another classic with rivals Laura Gemmell and Olivia Blatchford playing in the #1 position for Canada and the USA, respectively. Laura has the edge in matches and she continued to hold the advantage today. The first game went back and forth as both players had good dying length and excellent touch. Laura stretched Olivia out on many drives and won the first game with some excellent length mixed with her trickle boast. In the second game, Olivia fought back but a few tins on tight shots made the difference. In the third game, Olivia changed her strategy to play more short shots and Laura countered with excellent length both down the wall and cross court. She took the match 3-0 and made the score 1-1 to set up the deciding game.
Jen Pelletier (Canada) and Julie Cerullo (USA) played in the #3 position and this was the deciding match. In the CAN – USA play. The first game was dominated by Julie to win about 11-4 when Jen made some unforced errors. The second game was very close with Jen hitting excellent drops and Julie driving the ball to length. Julie hit two excellent short kills to win the first game 12-10. Julie had an excellent variety of shots in her game and she went on to dominate the 3rd games to win the match 3-0.
After the round-robin play, Canada was second in its pool behind the USA so it moved on to the top eight pool to fight for the title in the knock out play that starts tomorrow. Between now and then there is time for a swim in the pool at the squash complex. This is the best way to cool off. Then we are all off for dinner with the team and parents to celebrate some great competition.