Norfolk Ladies give Yorkshire a fright before losing 5-4 in County Finals
Norfolk Ladies pose for a team picture at Aspley Guise in Bedfordshire after winning County Week for the second year running. Pictured from left to right with the Doris Abraham Trophy are Amelia Williamson, Tiffany Mills, Chloe Rowswell, Sammy Martin (past captain), Imogen Leeder, Sue Heeles (captain), Jo Herd, Chloe Gibbs, Amy Taylor and Heather Keeble (president). Missing are Karen Young and Abigail O'Riordan who were unavailable for the final day Picture: NORFOLK CGU - Credit: Archant
A stirring afternoon comeback was not quite enough as Norfolk Ladies suffered their second successive defeat in the English County Finals at Delamere Forest on Tuesday.
Sue Heeles' team won four of their six singles matches against a highly rated Yorkshire side, but still went down 5-4 after being beaten in all three of their morning foursomes matches.
Following a 6-3 defeat against Gloucestershire on day one Norfolk find themselves fifth in the six team table going into Wednesday's match against Buckinghamshire - but having given a good account of themselves against the two front runners they should now feel confident of making their presence felt over the remainder of the week long tournament.
It looked like being a long hard day for Norfolk when they went in at lunch 3-0 down. Tiffany Mills and Imogen Leeder were involved in a close encounter which they lost by one hole but the other two matches finished early, with Jo Herd and Karen Young losing 7&5 and sisters Hope and Eve Neild 4&2.
After lunch it was a different story and after Chloe Gibbs had been beaten 3&2 in the opener Norfolk came storming back.
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Abigail O'Riordan won 3&2 and then a trio of two up wins from Herd, Eve Neild and Mills - who missed the first day after a trip to the Solheim Cup at Gleneagles - made it really interesting.
With the scores now level at 4-4 it was anybody's game and it all hinged on a tight final encounter between Dereham player Leeder and Yorkshire's Melissa Wood. Sadly for Heeles and her team there was to be no happy ending, with Wood prevailing 2&1, but it had still been an excellent performance from a side missing some of their top players.
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Royal Cromer's Tracey Williamson and Barnham Broom's Jo Ashmore are otherwise engaged in the R&A Women's Senior Amateur Championship at Royal St David's in Wales, which gets under way today, while Tracey's daughter Amelia and Amy Taylor have returned to the United States to continue their studies.
"You will always leave yourself with a mountain to climb if you lose all the foursomes but I was delighted with the way the team battled back after lunch and we could easily have got a half out of the game," said the skipper.
