Awards Night Celebrates Local Table Tennis Stars and Volunteers

Members of the Rockhampton Table Tennis Association gathered at the Rocky Sports Club last Friday evening for the annual presentation of trophies function and to commemorate another successful year of activities at the club. After the presentation of medals for the year’s four fixture seasons and the closed championships the annual perpetual awards were presented to some surprised and ecstatic recipients as well as a few very vocal supporters.  

The Incentive Trophy is a perpetual that is awarded to one of the club’s juniors who the club’s head coach believes to have a bright future in the sport. This year Pam Clarke went for young Rishi Roopireddy out of a few bright young prospects. Unfortunately, the youngster could not receive his award on the night due to his family being away on holidays. 

The usually hotly contested award for the Best and Fairest in the open grade fixture went to a very happy Nick Green. This award is decided by the players who regularly take part in the competition and there is usually plenty of banter doing the rounds during the final season of the year when the voting is cast.

Judd Carr was presented with the Les Thorn Most Improved Junior Boy memorial trophy for his second year in a row and, while the selection panel had a few youngsters to consider, Carr was obviously a popular choice.  

The Life Members’ Trophy which is presented to the club member who the selectors consider to have made a significant contribution to the association over the past twelve months went to an extremely surprised Kelsey Pettett. Pettett is one of the main organisers of the Monday morning Bat and Chat session which is aimed at people over fifty years of age.

No sooner had Pettett got over the shock of being anointed “the volunteer of the year” and she was recalled to the presentation area to receive the all-important Player of the Year perpetual. The selectors considered her performances at the state and national veteran championships where she made her first appearance in the Over-30 division while she also was crowned the city’s women’s champion at the closed championships.

In a big week at the city’s club the fixtures in top grade were wound up for the year on Tuesday night. Leading into a two-week finals-series, at the conclusion of one full round, the teams were split into two sections based on where they sat on the leaderboard. Teams captained by Joel Coughlan, Matt Pettett, Dane Coughlan and Jakob Baker wound up in the top section.

After the semi-finals Joel Coughlan, Ann-Louise Stewart and Oliver Wright had to take on Pettett, Pam Clarke and Hilton Wright in the GF to decide the major premiership. An incredible match unfolded with one alteration to the line-ups. With Stewart being unavailable Joel Gifford was drafted in and turned out to be a good sub as he was undefeated in all three clashes he was involved.

Coughlan’s outfit looked good when they lead 2-1 after the opening three doubles ties. Pettett’s side made it two apiece when he ousted Coughlan in a good quality four-sets encounter, as expected from this pair. Gifford then put Coughlan’s outfit one in front with a solid win over Clarke and that left Wright to play Kane for the match, and the gold medal. The equation was that whichever player won this clash their team would win the premiership as the games, which had to be used for count-back purposes should the match end at three-all were ten-all at that point in time.

Kane looked like he had the wood on Wright when he won the first two sets to seven and six points and enjoyed a handy lead in the third stanza. The tempo changed and Wright won the third 12-10 after running down his opponent. Wright continued and he won the fourth game to seven points to create a decider. Both players had their chances in the decider before Kane finished just too strongly to win 11-9 and give his team the premiership.

In the second section Rayden Smith and Chris and Helga Leitner were pitted against James O’Sullivan, Glen McDonald and Jeff Jordan for the flag. In a very competitive clash O’Sullivan’s outfit won two doubles ties to one, Jordan held out Helga Leitner and McDonald narrowly defeated Chris Leitner 12-10 in the deciding fifth set. This win handed the winner’s trophy to the O’Sullivan, McDonald and Jordan combination.