2013 NSW U15, U18 & U21 Snooker Championship

This year’s event was held at Bathurst Panthers Leagues Club. The current U18 state champions (Scott Middleton) home town and as there were a few other locals’ interested and not much response from any Sydney players registered. There were four locals’ players, another player from Lithgow and one from the Central Coast.

The club boasts an underage sanctioned area which includes video (arcade type) games, two pool (bar size) tables. And of course four very well maintained Billiard Tables. They had competition balls that were sparkling clean so the association’s balls remained in the car (Murphy’s Law applies).

There was a six way round robin played between all the players 2 x 19 yr olds, 2 x 18’s a 15yr old & 10 yr old, each match best of 3, which took most of the day, so plenty of snooker was had by all, well you can’t have too much of a good thing. It was the first time some of the boys had played in full dress and refereed by someone in a suit. And everyone made an effort to dress as in evident from the group photo. All the boys conducted themselves extremely well and a good day was had by all.

A final in each age group was played to find the state champions in each age group, as it happened Scoot Middleton & Scott Butler both local boys in the Under 18 age group finished 1 & 2 in the group. So they played two finals U18 & U21, both finals being best of 3 with Scott Middleton coming out on top in both finals. He also had the highest break on the day with a 36. Scott played a good brand of attractive and attacking snooker in the final to retain his U18 title and winning the U21 Title. Congratulations to Scott.

The U15 Final was contested by Edward Dukes 15 & Denzel Nicholson 10, both local boys, Denzel won 2-1 after only winning 1 frame in the round robin. Edward won the first frame and had a couple of chances to close out the match 2 nil bu the pockets seemed to close up on Edward and Denzel hung in there to level at 1 all. In the final frame and with some great potting forged a lead and managed to hang on for a great and thrilling win. Congratulations to Denzel. It goes without saying he excels at pretty much everything he does. Unlucky to Edward he played well all day.

We hope all players keep playing and encourage others to play Thank you to the Bathurst Panthers Club and there sponsorship, especially Natasha Dukes for helping to put on this tournament for the juniors and to Diane State from Lithgow for helping during the day.

Thank you to Michael Sharp from SHARPSNOOKER to provide trophies to the winners and runners up.

Also a massive thank you to Gary Knight as this would not have been possible without him. Gary refereed all day and was great to have him to lean on.

David Waller