When SportToday was quizzing Hawke's Bay's former No1 women's badminton player last week about the fancied teams in Saturday's masters teams event, the showpiece of Badminton Hawke's Bay's 75th jubilee celebrations, she didn't mention her team. Yet her side which also included Tim Forster, Kerry McIntyre and Gayle Parlane took outthe highly competitive 35-45 years section. "We thought we might sneak in the back door," she laughed after the last shuttle had been smashed in the 16-team IMS Payroll-sponsored event at the Hastings Sports Centre. "And that's exactly what happened ... we won on a countback of games after us and another team finished with one loss," Tostevin explained. The Bay team of Wayne Young, Dave Reardon, June Crawford and Karen Earle, which Tostevin, had tipped as the Bay's best hopes for the title finished second. The tie between Tostevin's team and Reardon's was drawn 2-all and Tostevin's quartet took it out on a sets countback. Tostevin pointed out the experience gained by the Hawke's Bay players in the event should prove beneficial when the Bay's No1 masters team attempts to retain North Island division
one status next month when they must beat Counties. The team has already beaten Taranaki this season. Saturday's 45-plus section was won by an Auckland team spearheaded by the nationally ranked Jake Van Selm. Hawke's Bay's Doug Abraham was a member of the winning team in the 55-plus section. His teammates were Gisborne's Linda White and the Wellington North duo of Lesley Gledhill and Dave White. A Hawke's Bay team of Alison Sutherland, Tania Keesing, Ray Johnson and Peter Lo was second. The 45-plus age group also included a B and C grade section which was won by a Manawatu team.
