The University of Lincoln’s Women’s Badminton team advanced to the quarter-finals of the Midlands Conference Cup after beating Nottingham 3rds on a tiebreak.
The Women’s Badminton team are unbeaten this season but the last time they faced a Nottingham side they lost 6-2.
However the singles players were a force to be reckoned with and their impressive wins sealed a victory for Lincoln despite the overall match being a 4-4 tie.
In Game One Steph Tillman steamrollered her opponent 21-6 21-8, barely taking a breath as she dispatched the Nottingham player. This did rile up the opposition and after the Notts player lost, she picked up her water bottle and chucked it at one of the pillars in the sports, scaring the supporters.
In Game Two Amy Smith finished off her opponent in a similar fashion.
The doubles matches they were more of a tight affair.
Game Three saw Laura Jouhning and Jess Carter lost 16-21 and 14-21.
Game Four saw Catherine Elliott and Emma Simpson play an incredibly close game which ended in Nottingham getting a 21-19 21-16 win which leveled the scores.
For the second lot of games the players swapped their opponents but the results were much the same result.
Tillman once again dominated her opponent, though her tough hits did eventually break a string in her racket. And oddly enough, her 21-6 21-8 win was exactly the same as her first game.
And while Amy Smith did start to lose their concentration towards the end of the second set in her game, she did win 21-8 21-14, making sure that Lincoln would continue their unbeaten run.
All the doubles needed to do to make sure they won the tiebreaker was win or set or just register a large amount of points. And while the combination of Jouhning and Carter were close to winning a set, they were beaten 20-22 before losing the game after a 9-21 loss in the second set.
But with the points they got plus the combined 31 Elliott and Simpson got in their straight sets loss, Lincoln easily won the points tiebreaker 293-233.
They advance to the quarter final and will face either Derby or Oxford Brookes.
Captain Amy Smith
“Yeah I’m very happy and proud of myself for winning!”
“(The single’s wins) were very good, under ten.”
On the points the doubles got “That’s why we won it really with the points they managed to get in the doubles.”
“All the team put in a lot of effort, a good team performance.”
“I’m not sure (who we want in the next round). We played Derby in our league games so that’d be another good match.”
On winning the cup”Yeah definitely can’t see why not!”