The Durham and Cleveland Squash junior team had a great tournament at the regional closed competition held at Tynemouth squash club last weekend.

The regional closed event sees the best junior players from Cumbria, Northumbria as well as Durham and Cleveland compete with age groups from under 11 to under 19 and this annual event was extremely well supported.

Norton provided two winners at under 11 with Scott McDonald winning the plate event and club teammate Daniel Hockbone winning 3-2 in the main competition.

Aycliffe's Lee Skinner pulled off the result of the weekend by beating the nationally ranked No 2 seed, Cumbria's Paul Bell 3-0, but was eventual runner-up in the under 17 final. This was a replica of the Northumbria open final held at Jesmond three weeks ago with Northumbria's Jamie Douglas beating Skinner in both f inals.

Guisborough had both finalists in the under 13 boys event with Chris Allison beating Joss Harris and Darlington's Andrew Scott runner up in the under 15 final.

The County girls were also well represented with Chester-le-Street's Sheryl Cardy maintaining a strong family tradition by winning the under 15 girl's plate event.

Nationally ranked Katy Burgin from the Ballentynes club in Durham had a decisive win in the Under 19 girl's final and the same club also provided the runner up in the boy's final with Michael Burton deserving more than a 3-0 loss.

Katy Burgin and Lee Skinner will cut short their Christmas holiday with both players competing in the Scottish Junior Open in Edinburgh two days after Christmas. On their return both players with another County junior, Graham Johnson from Aycliffe will travel down to Sheffield to complete in the british Junior Open starting on January 2.