Eranga Alwis takes U-19 squash title

By Saif Izzadeen

After an exciting five setter Eranga Alwis of S.Thomas College’ Mt. Lavinia become the boy’s under 19 champion when he overcame the challenge offered by Nilruk Soysa of Royal College in the 18th Junior squash nationals worked off at the Tamil Union Squash courts yesterday.

The match lasted for one hour and 10 minutes and the final score read 9-5, 5-9, 4-9, 10-9 and 9-7 in favour of Eranga Alwis. It was nail biting stuff from the start and kept the spectators on the edge of their seats.

Eranga raced to 5-0 lead in the first set. However Nilruk Soysa came back fighting to level the scores at 5-5. Alwis used his experience to good effect to win the set at 9-5. In the second set too Alwis enjoyed a 5-0 lead. This time Soysa leveled the score at 5-5 and went on to win the set at 9-5.

In the third set Nilruk Soysa rattled last year’s champion Eranga Alwis and went onto win the set comfortably at 9-4.

However Alwis showed that it was minor hiccup and after this stiff resistance from Soysa, Alwis went onto win the fourth and fifth set 10-9 and 9-7 respectively and with it the match.

Nirasha Guruge from Elizabeth Moir International school became the girl’s under 19 champion when she scored a 9-4,9-1 and 9-0 win over Randima Ranaweera of Sirimavo Bandaranayake girl’s school .