PREMIER / DIV 1 ROUND-UP WEEK 14
Published 18/12/2022 at 13:54:05 by David Wackrill.
PREMIER DIV SPINNERS IN POLE POSITION FOR XMAS
The top of the table Greenleys ‘royal’ derby lived up to it’s pre-match billing, ending all square in a terrific contest with four players winning 2 sets each. Kings brought in Andras Bayer to accompany Nick Howard and Guy Sparrow to face a Monarchs line up of Tomek Nowakowski, Dave Tiplady and Dave Beddall. It was nip and tuck all the way through with no side taking a decisive lead. Monarchs were ahead 3-2 at the half way stage but Kings led 5-4 going into the final set where Tomek beat Guy to clinch the draw. Tomek and Dave T. were the two-time winners for Monarchs with Nick and Andras their Kings’ counterparts. The crucial doubles went to Monarchs.
Meanwhile champions MK Spinners were grabbing the opportunity to go top themselves for the festive period, by a single point from Monarchs, with a straightforward 10-0 win over my bottom placed MK Topspin side. Unfortunately I cried off on the day, leaving skipper Russell Penn and our only other registered player Mervyn Kelly to face Spinners’ trio of Alan Cherry, Jecu Aurelian and Gary Jones alone. Mervyn was making a very welcome return to League action following the conclusion of his Antipodean adventures, so a tough match to chose to re-launch his season. With 2 matches in hand on their Championship rivals, Kings are still well placed to take the title though.
The only other match played this week was between Greenleys Warriors and Leighton Buzzard Van Hire. This proved to be another personal triumph for Hire’s Hakan Karaagac, albeit in a losing side. Hakan beat Ricky Taiwo, Darren Ward and Saish Prabhu for another outstanding hat-trick (the only one of the week) which takes him up to 6th in the averages among the League regulars with a place in the end of season ‘top 8’ competition firmly in sight. Two wins each for Ricky and Darren, plus the doubles, and one from Saish was enough to see Warriors home 6-4. Van man Dave Broome won his first singles of the season for Hire’s other point, beating Saish 11-9 in the 5th. Ian Doughty also played.
The Sasaki/Phoenix match was called off because of the extreme weather conditions prevailing this week. Pending these ice age conditions relenting, the match will be re-scheduled for January.
Player of the week : Hakan Karaagac
DIVISION 1
MOLLOY TAMES THE BIG CATS
Wow! Big hitting James Molloy of 5th placed Woburn Sands Mosquitoes emulated last week’s performance by Avengers’ Alex Du Noyer in scoring a maximum and sharing the doubles victory in his side’s 6-4 defeat to leaders MK Pumas. Rob McPheat was his doubles partner and Glen Barcham the other Mosquito. Julie Snowdon, Lowri Hurd and Chris Belton played for Pumas who, despite a rocky fortnight, still hold a commanding 10 point lead going into the Winter break.
2nd placed Greenleys Glory, even with Div 3 substitute Ricky Jackson on board, had their match against MK Pioneers, in 7th place, won before the Pioneers managed to get on the scoreboard themselves. Ricky was going great guns with victories over Andy Frearson and Terry Lau, but found Marco Hahn a step up in class too far at this stage in his development. Marco also beat Scott Dixon to earn Pioneers a second point. Usual hat-trick for Jacob Midson.
At the other end of the table MK Powers started well against 4th placed Open University Primes when Minesh Pitamber beat James Zeng 11-7 in the 5th, but that was the end of their night’s success as Primes swept the board in the remaining 9 sets despite another 5 of them going to a deciding game! Hat-tricks here for Andy Tan and Patrick Wong. Zeros for Keith Carrington, and Pete Tillotson. This was Primes biggest win of the season, coming just two weeks since their previous biggest win, as they continue to shoot up the table fast.
Just like the Premier, this division suffered one bad weather postponement, with the Leighton Buzzard Avengers match with MK Sharks rescheduled for January.
Player of the week : James Molloy