The Warwickshire Cadets headed to Southampton on Sat 21st March for the final round of matches in this years County Championship. After a disappointing 2nd round the team were placed 6th of 10 and were keen to climb the table with a strong performance on the last day.
A great start in the first of the days four matches against Sussex 3 saw the Bears win 9-1. The momentum was quickly with Warwickshire after a 5th game victory for Sam Cafearo over the opposition's top player Kieran Gray and comfortable straight-game wins for Lewis Singleton (Lillington), Lisa Rinnhofer (Colebridge) and Adam Cofler (Lillington). Joelle Bennett then claimed Sussex 3's only win by overcoming Katie Singleton (Lillington) in a nervy encounter. Katie bounced-back quickly to claim victory over Lisbet Dubois and Adam Cofler came through a tense deciding-game match against Kieran Gray to ensure a healthy winning margin.
Warwickshire were gifted 2 points in their second encounter as Wiltshire could only field one girl. Despite some very good attacking play, Bears #2 Sam Cafearo suffered defeat in the first match of the fixture to opposition #1 Charlie Joyce. This however would turn out to be Wiltshire's only point. The same player would run #1 Adam Cofler very close but again a determined Adam came out on-top in a 5-game match. Lisa Rinnhofer and Lewis Singleton continued to impress and sister, Jennifer Singleton (Lillington), beat Hazel Brown in her first match of the day. Another strong 9-1 win for Warwickshire.
Sussex 2 started the day 4th in the league and having suffered early losses, Warwickshire were on the back foot and would need to dig deep to stay in the contest. Although all competitive only Adam Cofler could register a win for the boys beating his opposite number, Ryan Darwen. The girls though remained resilient and picked up 3 of the Bears 4 points. Lisa Rinnhofer remained unbeaten and Katie Singleton claimed another good win beating Amelia Long in four games
Having lost their third fixture 4-6 the team needed to rally for their last match against Dorset and aided by fantastic court-side support, they did just that. An opening victory from Dorset #2 Jamie Blair over Adam put the Bears 1 down then victories from Lewis, Jenny, Sam and Lisa followed before Jamie Blair won his second against Lewis to make the score 4-2 to Warks. Adam clinched yet another deciding-game match and Jenny, Lisa and Sam all won in straight sets to finish the campaign with a deserved and convincing 8-2 victory.
A special mention must go to Warwickshire's girls; Lisa Rinnhofer, Katie Singleton and Jenny Singleton who picked-up 12 out of a possible 14 wins on the final day.
