Following their 20-16 home defeat to Worcestershire in the L-Stylr Division One of the UKDA National League, Salopian, were hoping to get back on to winning ways and move up from their ninth position in the division in their latest fixture, an away game against bottom of the division Berkshire.
The ladies ‘B’ got off to a fine start as Tracey Nicholas, Emma Tapp and Sue Lane put them 3-0 up with wins over Millie Baggaley (3-2), Tania Burdett (3-1) and Jessica O’Connell (3-1). Berkshire’s Chris Ruffell won the fourth against Molly Atter 3-1 but Salopian ended the game 5-1 winners with further wins from Hayley McGuinness, who beat Kryshia Muss 3-0 and lady of the match Emma Hayward who averaged 18.11 in her 3-0 win over Vanessa O’Connell.
The home team got the first stripe on the board in the men’s ‘B’ match, Doug Harwood winning 4-2 against Dean Stokes. However the lead didn’t last long as Jack Darby won 4-3 against James Johnson and Eddie Price won 4-1 against Glen Brown to put the visitors 2-1 up. Parity was restored in the fourth when Lee O’Neill beat Glyn Thomas 4-2 but by the halfway stage Salopian were leading 4-2 after Tony Burton defeated Steven Hobbs 4-0 and man of the match Scott Towers won 4-2 against Andy Sturton, Towers averaging 24.26.
The second half was all Salopian, winning all six games thanks to Jake B. Smith, Andy Gilbert, Jake Elsey, Ian Evans, Danny Humphries and Scott Dockerty who defeated respective opponents Dion Newman (4-0), Ian Johnson (4-2), Patrick Gough (4-1), James Clifton (4-3), Kevan Merritt (4-2) and Thomas Grigg (4-2) to give Salopian’s men’s ‘B’ a resounding 10-2 victory.
After opening up a 1-0 lead, when Kelly Ellis beat Stacey Price 3-0, Berkshire ladies ‘A’ then found themselves trailing 3-1 as Steph Clarke won 3-0 against Marie O’Brien, Kate Titley beat Debbie Shadwell 3-2 and Tracey Dean won 3-0 against Hayley Watts, Dean earning herself the match award for her very creditable 24.24 average. The final score was 3-3 as Berkshire’s Jayne Orencas won 3-1 against Sue Lane and Carol Holroyd sealed the 3-3 draw with her 3-1 success against Emma O’Callaghan.
With the overall score standing at 18-6 in favour of Salopian, the away side required just one winner from the men’s ‘A’ game to achieve overall victory for the weekend and that came in the very first encounter as Gary Crowther won 4-1 against Ian Hobbs, Hobbs at the same time also clinching the man of the match award for his 30.16 average. Mark Crutchley put Salopian’s men’s ‘A’ two up when he beat Karl Williams 4-0 before Berkshire got their first winner in the shape of Joe Lacy who had a 4-0 win over Dean Rogers and with a 4-3 success for Anthony Dean against Terry Nash, the score was level at 2-2. Salopian had opened up a 4-2 lead by the midway point as Jamie Chaplin beat Paul Snowsill 4-3 and by the same margin Dave Bayton won against Callum Dorward.
It was not a good start to the second session as Berkshire went from 4-2 down to lead 5-4 as their Paul Hogan won 4-0 against Jamie Kynaston, Stephen Wood beat Oscar Saxton 4-3 and Archie Self defeated Scott Dockerty 4-2. Jon Mansell levelled the game with his 4-2 success over Mark Hadwick only to see the hosts forge ahead again in the penultimate encounter when Jake Hobbs beat Paul Rowley 4-1 to leave the result all down to the final tussle between Paul Self (Berkshire) and Kacey Jones. The result was a 4-1 win for Kacey Jones to put the result all-square at 6-6.
The overall result for the weekend was a 24-12 win for Salopian to see them move three places up the table to sixth with 103 points and although thirty-four points short of Clwyd, Salopian do have a game in hand, not only on the leaders but on all of the three top teams.
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