The last month has seen a few ups and downs in the fortunes of Academy Badminton’s league teams.
Having been promoted as runners up last season our ladies team are beginning to find life in Division 3 tough going. Having started encouragingly and shared the points with the University of Bristol over their first two fixtures, their next two matches have seen them slump to consecutive 5-1 losses away at Wyvern and St Ursulas. We’re only four fixtures in but there’s already some pressure on next months home match to DL Reds.
The men, having started poorly with two losses, have found some form of late and backed up their 6-0 thrashing of Broadlands with a good away draw at Keynsham. They followed that result with a commanding 6-0 demolition of Nailsea and Backwell, which Al, as captain was understandably pleased with. He was quick to point out what an all round team performance it was, with everyone focused on taking maximum points. It’s a result that should see the men’s season well and truly back on track after a sluggish start.
The best start to the season has been by Mixed 1, who recorded their third straight win on Wednesday (10 December) with an excellent performance at home to Broadlands. They ran out eventual 4-2 winners in a match that could easily have seen that scoreline reversed on another day. Broadlands came with a strong team that challenged in all the pairings, and will probably feel disappointed not to have taken a share of the points, having pushed a number of the games to deciders. However, it was not to be and in fact it could have been far worse for them. At the end of the mixed pairings Academy were 3-1 up thanks to Paul and Bridget having taken both their matches and Matt and Jo halving theirs. The men then won their match fairly comfortably to take an unassailable 4-1 lead, with the final ladies pairing going to a decider. Broadlands eventually edged it 18-21 but only after a determined fightback from the Academy ladies. At 14-20 the point for Broadlands looked a formality but some inspired serving from Bridget combined with some excellent all round team play saw the girls win four points in double quick time to put some pressure on before Jo narrowly missed with an attempted drop shot to concede the game. Mixed 1 have now taken 13 points from a possible 18 so far this season and must already be feeling quite a home in this division following promotion last term.
And finally, Mixed 2 also saw an upturn in form after their heavy loss to the University of Bristol back in October. Having had one fixture postponed since then the team were clearly keen to get some points on the board, which they duly did with a battling 3-3 draw at home to Highbury. Whilst not the win they would have hoped for, it gets them off the mark for the season and should provide a platform to build from when the meet Nailsea and Yatton Optimists in early January.
