PREMIER/DIV 1 ROUND-UP
PREMIER DIV WEEK 19 ROUND-UP
SPINNERS ON THE BRINK
While leaders MK Sasaki falter at the penultimate hurdle, former champions MK Spinners sit in pole position going into the final week following a resounding 7-3 victory over MK Kingpins. Long time team member Gary Jones has suffered a poor season by his standards but was on sparkling form this week as he rattled off a fine maximum against the usual Kingpins trio of Mark Purcell, Dave Allison and Julian Adams. to add to an expected one from Alan Cherry. Kingpins always give the opposition a good match and Mark & Dave will qualify as usual for the ‘Top 8’ competition on 9th April. Julian however is having his worst season since 2010/11 and has fallen below the 50% mark for the first time since then.
MK Sasaki trail by a point now following their 7-3 defeat to Greenleys Kings. Had Kings’ star man Guy Sparrow shown his recent form earlier in the season they would surely have been challenging for the title themselves instead of remaining winless for the first 15 matches. An incredible transformation indeed. Guy took his 4th maximum running here and when Guy wins then Kings win, as the supporting cast have always been capable of conjuring up 3 or more sets. This week Nick Howard took 2, Jordan Wood one, plus the doubles going Kings’ way. So Nick, having beaten Dan Smalley 3 times already this season, just failed a memorable clean sweep. Meantime, just one more hat-trick from Guy will take his average to exactly 50%.
MK Bandits beat Greenleys Monarchs 8-2 to move into a strong 3rd place, ready to take advantage of any slipups from the top 2 next time out. This result leaves last year’s champions Monarchs bottom of the Division and staring relegation in the face. Matt Evans logged his regulation maximum with a brace each from Jamie Hendy and Michael Wilkins.
Bandits & Kingpins fought out a draw last week (a spare Cup week) to bring the Premier fixtures up to date. Matt Evans starred with a hat-trick.
Whichever way it goes in the final week I think the new format of 6 teams playing each other 4 times has been a great success for the League. No endless succession of pointless 10-0 results as seen in previous years, with every match played being highly competitive.
Player of the week is Gary Jones.
DIVISION 1 WEEK 17 ROUND-UP
St.Christopher Van Hire thrashed bottom side Chackmore Hasbeens 9-1 to forge a 6 point lead over promotion rivals MK Pumas, who could only draw with Greenleys Eagles, and set up the prospect of a great final week when Pumas have the easy fixture against Hasbeens and Van Hire face runaway leaders Greenleys Warriors, who are well capable of inflicting a singles whitewash (though have no chance in the doubles set!) over them.
No whitewash for Warriors this week, however, as they could only field a 2-man side from their vast stable of talented players and stumble to a 6-4 win over MK Phoenix. Maximums here for Ricky Taiwo and Jordi Foraster, who also combined to lose the doubles. Amazingly this team with the best singles record in the division also has the worst doubles record of the 10 competing teams.
Bub Burman beat Van Hire’s David Broome 11-9 in the 5th for the Hasbeen’s consolation win as David’s team-mates Fabrice Spelta and Paul Haigh took maximums. In the Pumas/Eagles match it was a case of a brace a-piece for Pumas’ Julie Snowdon & Chris Belton and Eagles’ Barry Bishop & Geoff Callaway.
MK Topspin suffered a shock 6-4 defeat to 7th placed Woburn Sands Data to effectively drop out of the promotion race and settle for 4th position. James Molloy, on a 12 set winning streak, hit another hat-trick here with a supporting brace from Dave McGarragh.
Finally, MK Powers enjoyed a resounding 8-2 victory over OU Primes to dispel any lingering fears of a double relegation (Premier to Division 2 in consecutive years) that’s been hanging over them all season. Minesh Pitamber hit a hat-trick with brother Jiten and skipper Pete Tillotson contributing a brace each. That’s certain relegation now for the 2 promoted teams from last year, Primes and Chackmore Hasbeens.
Player of the week is James Molloy.