PREMIER & DIV 1 ROUND UP WEEK 8
Published 07/11/2022 at 14:09:49 by David Wackrill.
PREMIER‘DARK HORSES’ SASAKI HOLD KEY TO TITLE
3rd placed MK Sasaki turned up the heat in the title race by fielding the best side seen in the League for quite a while when trouncing club-mates Spinners 9-1. Leading the rout were Matt Evans and, on Premier debut, 15 year old Ben Dunkley. Ben last played in MK for lowly Tornadoes in 2019 but has moved on in leaps and bounds since then and is now ranked in the top 25 in England under 17s. He had a bit of trouble working out Jecu Aurelian’s defensive technique, dropping the opening 2 games before winning in 5, but went on to beat Gary Jones and Andy Smith, summoned from Div 1 to fill in for covid victim Alan Cherry, in straight games. Nicolas Wong lost to Jecu to give Spinners’ their solitary success. Should Sasaki continue to put out teams of this quality it will make quite an impact on the destination of the title, though I understand that they will only be selectinng their 'big name' players as and when any of the regular trio are unavailable.
Leaders Greenleys Kings have gone off the boil lately, failing to win for the second week running after a draw with club-mates Warriors. Skipper Nick Howard trebled his loss tally when losing to both Darren Ward and Ricky Taiwo (final set of match in a 5 game marathon). Kings’ Andy Wood picked up a win over Shrishlal Basant Rai but Guy Sparrow saved the day for them with a maximum. Darren and Ricky combined for the crucial doubles win to go with their singles successes.
It was a case of ‘all change’ once again for Leighton Buzzard Van Hire as they left their high-powered trio from last week behind in favour of a more moderate line-up from their vast pool of players for the visit to MK Phoenix. A grateful Phoenix gobbled up 8 precious points to lift themselves off the foot of the table for the first time this season, almost doubling their points tally into the bargain. A maximum here for Mervyn Phillips and a brace each for Alan Bolding and Iaon Constantin. For Van Hire, Ian Doughty put up fierce resistance with a fine brace himself after some close finishes. Ian beat Alan 15-13 in the 5th and only just lost to Mervyn 11-9 in their decider. Fabrice Spelta and David Broome were the other Van men.
My MK Topspin side were consequently dumped at the bottom of the pile following Phoenix’ big victory after going down 9-1 against 2nd placed Greenleys Monarchs. Mervyn Kelly supplied the victory in straight games over debutant Matt Rayner while Russell Penn and myself remained winless. Hat-tricks here for Tomek Nowakowski and Martin Hall.
Player of the week : Ben Dunkley
DIVISION 1
MOSQUITOS BUZZ BACK
All close matches again this week, 6-4 the biggest win and the 24 players involved scoring a solitary hat-trick between them.
Pick of the crop goes to Greenleys Glory’s tight draw with Open University Primes, 7 sets going to a decider and 13 scores of 11-9 recorded on the match card. Primes got off to a flyer with a 3-0 lead before the Glory boys started to pull back the lead with the doubles win. James Zeng and Andy Tan got a brace each for Primes and Patrick Wong just the single win this time. For Glory, Jacob Midson suffered a rare defeat (to James), so only 2 wins for him which was eaqualled by Scott Dixon. Ricky Jackson played up from Div 3 for Glory to beat Patrick!
Leaders MK Pumas squeezed home 6-4 against bottom placed Pioneers thanks to a hat-trick from skipper Andy Smith, completed in the final set of the night against old adversary Terry Lau, plus a brace from Chris Belton, who he shared the doubles success with. Terry had opened the match brightly with a victory against Lowri Hurd, who was suffering from a bad cold and, unfortunately, was unable to continue in the match. Chris’ conquerer was Paul Haigh and Andy Frearson was the other Pioneer.
Woburn Sands Mosquitos are back on the table after their recent troubles, 25 days after playing their last League match. They might have hoped for an easier return to the fold than a visit to Wing to play 2nd placed Leighton Buzzard Avengers, and with a Div 3 substitute in tow too. But it all worked out well for Mosquitos, who fought out a draw with two wins each from James Molloy and super sub Dave McGarragh, plus the doubles from James/Glen Barcham. Cristi Hulpan and Richard Hardy bagged a brace themselves for Avengers with Anton May taking a single win.
3rd placed MK Sharks saw off the challenge of MK Powers 6-4. The big news here was the defeat of Rupert Greyling, and in straight games too, against Powers’ skipper Pete Tillotson. No hat-trick though for Pete or anyone else, 4 players ending with a brace a-piece. Pete’s nemesis was Abhay Tijare, who in turn lost to Powers’ Keith Carrington. As both sides featured substitutes playing up from Div 3 it meant, of course, that one of them was going home with a win under their belt and that was Adam Snowdon, who beat Paddy Patel in his Div 1 debut to give Sharks the victory.
Player of the week : Dave McGarragh