Chasing Pack Close Gap On Snipers ‘B’

With Worksop Welfare Snipers ‘B’ having a blank week in Division Two this week it gave the teams trailing in their wake a chance to close the gap and apply a little bit of pressure on the current Division Two leaders. Stanley Street ‘B’ are the team in second place at the moment and they took full advantage of the Snipers not playing by beating Sparken Hill Falcons to close the gap to just 3 points. Mark Sansom and Ralph Rodda led the way for Stanley Street with a hat-trick of singles wins each over Luke Barraclough, Neil Penny and Mick Potter. Sansom and Rodda well supported by Andy Kirkland who added two wins, losing out to Penny, Kirkland then teamed up with Sansom to beat Barraclough and Penny to take the doubles and to complete a 9-1 win.
Third placed Manton Sports also had the chance to close the gap but their erratic team selection let them down once again and they ended up losing at home 7-3 to Sparken Hill Eagles but if they had picked their strongest team possible then the result could have been different. The Eagles John Hallgarth took the Player Of The Match accolade with an impressive hat-trick of wins over Alan Wilson, John Lowde and Keith Smith, with Alex Olliffe adding two wins of his own over Lowde and Smith with Keith Swift chipping in with a single win against Smith. Swift and Olliffe took the doubles with a 4-set win over Lowde and Smith to complete the scoring.
Mid table security beckons for both Carlton X-Youth and Manton Tigers who met this week in a close and entertaining encounter with the X-Youth outfit just edging out the Tigers with a 6-4 victory. The ever-improving Simon Hooley was the star of the show as the X-Youth player defeated all three Tigers in Steve Beeston, Phil Hall and Dave Bowns but the X-Youth’s win was a real team effort and both Andrew Dolby and Mark Cooper made important contributions as they both beat Phil Hall. Hooley and Dolby then got the better of Beeston and Bowns in the doubles beating them in straight sets to put the icing on the cake of a well-deserved win.
The last fixture in Division Two this week was the battle of the Welfares as Worksop Welfare Cannon entertained their club colleagues The Harriers who had Andy Vinson in top form as he registered an excellent hat-trick of wins over Kay Wilson, Perry Bradford and Nick Sievewright and helped his team to the narrowest of 6-4 victories. Neil Fisher and Dean Marsh chipped in with a win each over Sievewright to help the Harriers on to 5 sets and Fisher and Vinson then just managed to overcome Bradford and Wilson in the all-important doubles winning it 14-12 in the deciding set to get their team over the line to secure all three points. Despite their win the Harriers remain bottom but are now just one point behind Welfare Cannon and only one win away from pulling themselves out of the relegation zone.
Perhaps the best result of the week was in Division One as Clowne ‘B’ managed to grab their first point of the season at the eleventh time of asking with a 5-5 draw with Stanley Street ‘A’. Joe Zygadlo 2, Rob Vaughan 1, James Weston 1 and a doubles win for Zygadlo and Vaughan saw them grab an unlikely share of the spoils.
At the other end of the table DTH Redlands Monsters stretched their lead at the top to 7 points with a 7-3 win over defending champions DTH Redlands Roosters. Another division one side to record a 7-3 victory was Worksop Miners Welfare who defeated the team that share their venue, Worksop Welfare Snipers ‘A’. A hat-trick for Richard Element, 2 for Dave Marsh, 1 for Mick Bell and the doubles was enough to see the Welfare side put some daylight between themselves in 3^rd place and 4^th place Stanley Street ‘A’.
In Division Three there were wind for Sparken Hill Nightingales over DTH Redlands Mean Machine and Sparken Hill Blue Jays Worksop Welfare Real Deal. There would have been a win for Sparken Hill Hawks as well but as they only had 2 players, so they had to settle for a 5-5 draw against DTH Redlands Rovers despite winning the match 6-4 as per the rules of playing with only 2 players.