Challenge cup final
Published 25/04/2024 at 09:12:58 by David Bartlett.
MK CAVALIERS ROMP TO FINAL TRIUMPHThis year's final saw MK Cavaliers who finished 6th in division 3 take on Little Horwood Frigates who finished 4th in division 7 during the regular season. Both teams having saved their best form for this year's cup matches. The match was moved from the traditional Tuesday night to Monday of this week to enable Chris Paddon to take part in the division 3 Top 8 scheduled for the Tuesday. You can read the write up on this elsewhere where Chris continued his fine end of season form winning the Top 8 after finishing 11th in the season's averages.
Cavaliers kept the same team that saw them win their semi final with Chris being accompanied by father and daughter pairing of Shaunak and Anjana Navalkissoor though they brought back Chris Welch for a starring role in the doubles with Chris Paddon after he missed the semi final for his son's parent evening. Frigates brought in their strongest team based on the season's averages of Mark Cowdrey, Steve Jones and Hilary Devan Wetton. This was after Colin Smith and Garry Coats had stood in for the absent Steve and Hilary in their semi final win over division 1 MK Pumas.
Cavaliers had enjoyed an unbeaten run to the final with group stage wins against Leighton Buzzard Avengers, Grennleys Valiants and Chackmore Hasbeens followed by knock out victories over MK Musketeers, Little Horwood Wooden Tops, Leighton Buzzard Buzzards and Greenleys Sovereigns.
Frigates qualified as the best third place team over the group stages following 2 wins in a group featuring Leighton Buzzard Raiders, Woburn Sands One Love and Greenleys Crusaders. They followed this up with knock out victories against Mursley Mallards, Leighton Buzzard Flashmans, Leighton Buzzard Galaxy and MK Pumas.
The challenge cup committee had awarded a handicap in favour of Frigates of 170 points for the final. On the night the attacking style of all of the Cavaliers players was too strong for the retrieving skills of the Frigates team. As a result the Frigates team only hit their target score in 2 of the games played with Cavaliers managing to beat their target by an average of 2 to 3 points in each of the other games. The end result was a victory to Cavaliers by 70 points.
Congratulations to Cavaliers and Frigates on reaching the final and Cavaliers on their win.
Thank you to Michael Howard and John Bradbury for being part of the challenge cup committee this season and for helping set the handicaps. It would be good to get at least one more player on the committee so if anybody feels like volunteering for next season please contact Mike or myself.
David