Ramandeep and Reshad impress at the South East Boccia Regionals
On Sunday the 17th of November, Reshad and Ramandeep travelled down to the Surrey Sports Centre, to represent PACE by competing in the South East Boccia Regionals, organised by Boccia England.
The PACE and England Talent Squad athletes arrived in Surrey early on the Sunday morning, registered for the competition and started their warm ups. Ramandeep and Reshad were both nervous and excited about challenging themselves in this competition, which is the biggest regional boccia competition in the country, featuring international athletes.
Reshad, a BC2 athlete, came up against Jasper in his first game. Jasper is a regular at the regionals, however a mixture of good decision making and execution resulted in Reshad winning his first game comfortably 7-0. This was a great start for Reshad and put him in a positive mood, looking forwards to his next game.
Ramandeep, also a BC2 athlete played her first game against Warren, an athlete whom she has never played before. As one of our most experienced athletes, Ramandeep started well and took points in all but one end. Her first ball shots were accurately onto the Jack, making it hard for Warren to respond. As a result, Ramandeep won her first game 4-1.
The second group game for Reshad was against Anton, from Sportsable. This started off as a very tense fixture, before Reshad demonstrated good game intelligence and took advantage of weaknesses in his opponent, throwing the Jack long. The game ended 5-1, putting Reshad in second place in his group.
Ramandeep’s second game was against Tim, who competes in the England Talent Squad and has recently been promoted to the England Lions. Tim is a promising athlete and an intelligent player, playing to his strengths to beat Ramandeep 4-2. However, this result did not stop Ramandeep finishing at the top of her group with a +1 points difference, qualifying for the semi finals.
The final group fixture saw Reshad come up against David Hill, an England international athlete who has been in the game for 8 years. Reshad started aggressively, hoping to beat David and put himself at the top of the group. However, David showed why he is an international athlete, taking advantage of a large scoring circle and scoring 6 points with some incredibly accurate shots in his first end. Reshad was disappointed to let the momentum go, but did not let this get to him as he changed his approach to a more defensive style of play. He eventually lost the game 8-4, but was very pleased to take four points against David. As Reshad finished second in his group, he qualified for the semi finals.
For the second time, Reshad and Ramandeep were drawn against each other in the Regional Semi Finals. These two friends, training partners and team-mates played a close game, with PACE supporters and fans torn between who to support. Both athletes have a good understanding of each other, they played the Semi Finals with smiles on their faces, encouraging each other and shaking hands after the game. There could only be one winner and the result of this match was 3-1 to Reshad, meaning he had made it through to the final. Ramandeep was disappointed not to make it through to the final, however she got back on court to practise over lunch in preparation for her 3rd/4th place playoff against Warren.
The 3rd/4th place play off between Ramandeep and Warren was extremely close. Warren had learnt from his first game and used this knowledge to take the lead in the first end. The match was very edgy and defensive, with each athlete taking one point only from each end. Ball by ball, the athletes found new ways to out-do each other and get closer to the Jack. The final score was 2-2, resulting in a tie-break end. This was one of the closest tie-break ends ever, as both athletes played world class shots, finding the gaps and exploiting the space. There could only be one winner though, and the winner of the tie-break, by less than half a centimetre was Warren.
The BC2 final took place between Reshad and David. Reshad was determined not to make the same mistakes he made in the first game and adjusted his game play, throwing the Jack long. He scored one point off this end, however David took four points off the following two ends to take the game to 4-1. The final end was one of the most tense ends of boccia ever, as Reshad forced David to play all of his balls, whilst Reshad was still holding three. Knowing he had to score with his final three shots to tie the game, Reshad’s performance in the competition peaked. He played three perfect shots, widening the scoring circle and scoring with his remaining balls. The final score was 4-4, which means a final tie-break end was needed to seperate the athletes. David won the toss and threw first, playing a great first ball shot. This made things very difficult for Reshad as he had to attack the Jack if he wanted to win the game. After all balls had been played, the final decision from the referee was 1 point to David, meaning that he won on the tie-break. This was disappointing for Reshad who was pleased with his performance, but not with a silver medal. He will be training hard to take gold at the London Regionals in January!
Well done to both PACE Boccia athletes. Finishing 2nd and 4th at the South East Regionals is a fantastic achievement, and one that both athletes hope to build on in London.
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