THE annual Borders Secondary School Championships were held at Earlston High School games hall last week.

Berwickshire High School took seven of the 12 titles while Peebles High School took three titles with the remaining two titles going to Eyemouth High School.

With over 50 entries from seven of the region’s secondary schools it was always going to be a busy day of competition.

The event began at 9.30am with the singles tournaments before moving on to the level doubles by lunch time and final matches being played late afternoon with a 4pm finish.

The day was a huge success and the standard of badminton from these fine, young players was, at times, simply breathtaking.

Kieran Burns from Berwickshire won the Under 14s boys title - beating Peebles High's Innes Cormack in the final.

Berwickshire's Eilidh Patterson lifted the girls trophy after beating Hawick's Chloe Blaikie in the final.

The under 14s doubles title was won by Berwickshire's Kieran Burns and Calum Landon.

And the girls doubles also went to Berwickshire with Eilidh Patterson and Ellen Massie proving too strong for the other teams.

Callum Stokes claimed the Under 16s boys title for Berwickshire after beating Finlay Rhind in the final.

Eyemouth's Jodie Black beat Sophie Anderson of Earlston High to claim the girls trophy.

The boys under 16s doubles went to Peebles High pair Aidan Ferrier and Eden Bal after a thrilling final against Finlay Rhind and Robert Ferries.

Eyemouth duo Jodie Black and Carrie Gibson beat Gemma Fullerton and Sophie Anderson of Earlston to win the under 16s girls title.

Kyle Mitchell from Berwickshire won the Under 18 boys title after an entertaining final with Mathew Comiskey from Earlston High.

The under 18s girls final was also exciting with Iona Fox from Peebles edging out Kirsten Rodwell.

Berwickshire duo Kyle Mitchell and Ben Langley won the under 18s boys doubles after beating Paul Goldie and Martin Goldie from Hawick.

Peebles High's Iona Fox and Kirsten Rodwell lifted the girls title.

Harry Turnbull from the organising committee told us: "The committee, parents and helpers rallied round doing teas/coffees and cakes, selling raffle tickets, scoring games, and running the competition from the technical table.

"Committee members are working hard to ensure that badminton continues to be promoted throughout the whole of the Scottish Borders for the years to come.

"Large tournaments such as this takes a lot of organising behind the scenes and people probably don’t realise how much work goes into an event like this, which is all done on a voluntary basis."

Following the tournament Dave Burns from the committee thanked everyone who helped on the day to make the event run smoothly.

He singled out Audrey Rae and Myra Younger who worked tirelessly in the kitchen serving up hot drinks and cakes, as well as Pearl Ford and Lynn Rhind who helped run the tournament from the technical table with Christine Wylie.

Gordon McLean, Sam Langley and David Rhind scored the finals.

Christine thanked Dave Burns for all his hard work on preparing the pools to ensure that the championships ran smoothly on the day.

The Borders Primary Schools Badminton Championships will be held on Saturday, February 23 at Earlston High School.

Players are required to enter the competition through their schools and they should speak to their head of PE to ensure they are entered.

Players must be affiliated to Badminton Scotland through their school.