SAMURAI pair Hetty Tinsdale and Lauren Fletcher took gold medals at the Worcestershire Open Judo Championships, but there were several other good performances from the club.

In the lightweight girls section, sisters Lily and Bonnie Deeming-Lane both entered and had a good go, reaching the semi-finals before losing to heavier, older and more experienced players from Kettering and mid-Wales respectively.

However, both then took well deserved bronzes.

Fletcher was the sole Samurai entrant in the girls middleweight category, and she won all five of her contests by maximum points, defeating a Somerset girl in the semi-final and a Droitwich girl in the final, with none of her contests lasting a minute and with her never under any serious pressure.

Tinsdale and Olivia Turner were the Samurai entrants in the heavyweight category, but both were dwarfed by some of the other girls there, where the fourth gave away away 26 kilograms in her first contest. Both girls, however, looked on superb form and were beating all of their opponents by maximum points.

Turner generally won matches on the ground and Tinsdale with a mixture of throws and ground holds.

After four wins each, the two met up in the final, which was quite an interesting battle eventually won by Hetty by two high-score throws to take both the gold and silver for Samurai.

With the boys categories also split into three sections, Samurai had just two players taking part. Jake Ashen was in the middleweights, although he was giving away a lot of weight in some cases.

He battled well and reached the final before losing to a player from Cornwall and having to settle for silver.

Finally, Spencer Benton had a go in the heavyweights, although he was up against much higher grades than himself, but he did well to win two contests, although he finished just short of the medals. Meanwhile, Rob Alloway was taking part in a men’s open and veterans competition in Birmingham and took bronze in both the men’s section and the veterans section.