Royal squash team emerge team champions

Royal College squash team won the team event beating S. Thomas College Mount Lavinia in the finals at the recent all island inter-school squash championships held at S. Thomas College Sports Complex. Although they lost the overall crown narrowly by one point, they fought hard to win the team event 3-2 with a nail biting finish to the tournament even though the Thomians had the advantage of playing at home.

The team event started off with the captains clashing to build the lead up. The Thomian captain Eranga Alvis won the match 3-0 beating Royal captain Jayath Jayaratne who was out of form during the tournament, in closely fought sets giving S. Thomas College the early lead. In the second match, Nilruk Soysa of Royal College dominated the game from the beginning beating Manesh Marambe the vice captain of S. Thomas College in straight sets equalling the tally.

The third match was between Roshane Nanayakkara of S. Thomas College and Akitha Gunasekara of Royal College. Roshane managed to win the match in a hardly fought four setter.

In the fourth match Thejaka Wijeweera of S. Thomas College suffered a humiliating defeat at the hands of Royalist Chakkranga Rajapaksa equalling the tally leading to the deciding fifth match, which was between vice captain of Royal College Akram Sulaiman and Adnan Issadeen of S. Thomas College.

Royal won the first two sets but S. Thomas College fought back winning the third and fourth sets heading towards a decisive fifth set.

In the fifth set S. Thomas College was up 8-6 match ball, but Akram Sulaiman fought back strongly winning the match 10-8 in a breath taking final set winning the team event for Royal College. Shiran Salgado and Jehan Gunaratne were reserves of Royal and S. Thomas respectively.