Sports Report – 18th May

Tennis

On Monday, the senior mixed doubles tennis team took on Welbeck school in their annual fixture. The pairs took a little while to settle into their matches, however, by the second round they were all playing some great tennis and thoroughly enjoying the sunshine! Tom Binnie and Hattie Lawrie (who’s serve wasn’t broken at all) won some crucial games, as did Tom Scarborough and Sarah Astill.  This meant that the team won 16 – 9 overall. Special mention should go to Eleanor Shaw and Krish Jhivanji who won all of their matches.

Rounders

U14 

On Tuesday night the U14 rounders team played Loughborough Amheurst. The girls were a little tentative to start with and only managed to score 5 rounders in their first innings. There were a few mistakes in the field, which caused Amherst to take the lead 8 – 5. However, the girls showed resilience and really turned things around in the second innings. Chelsea Makandeni and Victoria Wheatley scored numerous rounders with some fantastic hitting and Eleni Malhan took some fantastic catches in the field. The final score was 13.5 – 10 to Ratcliffe. Players of the Match were Chelsea Mahandeni and Eleni Malhan.

Cricket

Birkdale were the opponents for the cricket teams this week.

U15

In the U15 game Ratcliffe fielded well to restrict Birkdale to 119 in their 20 overs. Jacob Storey was the pick of the bowlers with 3 for 19 from his four overs. In reply, Ratcliffe started slowly with the bat but an excellent partnership between Ollie Howard and Joe Davies meant that in a very tense finish, Ratcliffe required seven runs off the final over to win. They fell just short but Ollie Howard was Man of the Match for his excellent 67 runs.

U13
The U13s faced a strong Birkdale side, in the end losing by 38 runs. Giving away extras in excess of 50 and a few dropped catches proved very costly as Birkdale recorded a score of 157. Birkdale were just as strong in the field, making the chase hard work. Ratcliffe ended on 119. Seb Welch was man of the match for taking three wickets in his bowling spell.

U12
The U12s team came unstuck against a disciplined side, losing by 60 runs. In spite of good bowling across the team, careless fielding cost Ratcliffe runs, which resulted in Birkdale posting 154. Unfortunately, this total proved too big to chase, despite Man of the Match George Leite’s aggressive batting in the dying overs.

Golf

Staff and Students took on the Old Ratcliffians in the first golf match of the year last Thursday at Rothley Park Golf Club. The match was played on a lovely evening, which made a change from last year’s torrential downpours. Mr Reddin and Harry Cregeen were the first pair out, with Harry helping the team halve their match with some excellent shots. Next out were Mr Gilchrist and Sam Leake. Sam played really well against a player with a handicap of 3. The match ended in a 3 & 2 victory for the school. It meant that a half in the last match, which included Mr Yell and Mr Taylor, would wrestle the shield back from the ORs and this is exactly what happened. They nearly won it with a putt on the last which just missed. Congratulations to all those played as it was a very nice evening.

Congratulations to KP who has been selected to represent Thailand U19s in Panda Cup in China from 23-30 May 2019. We look forward to hearing how he gets on.