The 9th and 10th April saw quite a busy weekend for the Tigers with both the A and B teams competing in Roundhay Park in Leeds and quite a number competing and supporting up at the division 2/3 slalom event at Fairnilee.  Read on to find out how the weekend went…

Saturday saw the A-team perform reasonably well, taking victories in all games, some looked a little shakey, but the whole team were determined to secure the top spot and clinched the victories needed.  Going into the final tournament, the A-team have a 9 point lead with 3 games to play and have a very strong goal difference.
 
The B-team had some terrible luck, and surprised quite a few of the top teams, going ahead in the early part of several games.  However, the composure was lacking and the team have been struggling with a lack of form and have needed to borrow C-team players to help out. On this occasion Paul Bone more than filled the breach, having an absolute stormer in goal, what a hero!  Despite all of this, the team managed to grasp loss out of the jaws of victory in all of their matches and will almost certainly be heading back to division 3 next year, but it is still mathematically possible to stay up, but it may be too much of an ask.
 
In the meantime a lot of the youngsters were up at Fairnilee competing in slalom.  Notable performances coming from Ben Watson winning the Judges event over Calum.  Ben Teasdale and Josh Holmes competed well in their first div 3 events, especially after Ben’s little dip on Saturday!  Kris Wilko had a storming run to put him in 4th place in the Div 2 men, a clean run would have put him 2nd!  At the end of Saturday’s competition, Zac Allen’s season got even better after racing well in kayak and a few strong performances in C1, Zach has made it to Div 1 in C1 too, well done!!! Well done to Ellie Brown too, who was brave enough to get on the water for a run on the rougher water, good work!
 
On Saturday night, those travelling up from Leeds made their arrivals (all after dark and all after a bit of a refuelling pitstop on the way up - thanks to the Fletchers!), changed the canoes and off we went again.
 
Sunday started early, for some of us at least, I was on the water for 7am in order to get a spot of training in before the madness of free practice!!  It was good to see so many Tigers having a splash around on the course, making the most of the great water that Scotland has.  For Scott and Matt’s C2 exploits, splashing around was the only way to describe it!  Despite this, they managed to pip Zac and Lloyd to the post in div 2/3 C2.  The judges competition was a little hotter on the Sunday too, with the pre race favourite Mark Ledger being destroyed by the more experienced (well I am 30 now!) competitor.  The early morning practice had helped the newcomers to div 3 perform outstandingly with Morgan Wigham in 3rd place, with Josh and Ben making big improvements.  Ramsey had a cracking 2nd place, with Kris Wilko gaining another 4th place.  Chaz had a dissappointing day after commenting on only racing kids in div 2, I think all of the travelling took it’s toll!
 
While the majority of the club were competing up in scotland, a number of paddlers raced at Matlock, well done to Brandon, Ari and Innes on their results.
 
Nicky