Cowburn Takes Hard Bat Title

Peter Cowburn has been crowned The Hard Bat Champion for this season in what turned out to be a fabulous tournament played at The Worksop Leisure Centre. 20 players took part who were all seeded and were split into 4 groups of 5 players with a round robin format in each group. All the winners of each group remained unbeaten with Group A being won by Peter Cowburn, Group B by last year's Runner Up Peter Eyre, Group C by Nigel Stent and Group D by Mick Bell. Bell had only just arrived back from holiday on the morning of the competition and coupled with some close games it took its toll and he had to retire due to fatigue before the semi finals. It was pleasing to see so many junior players taking part and Bell's retirement was to give one of the junior players a chance to go through to the semi finals. John Nelson who had finished runner up in Bell's group was deservedly put through to play Peter Cowburn in the first semi final but unfortunately couldn't stop Cowburn's hot streak of form and he eventually lost 31-19 but nonetheless Nelson can be pleased with his nights efforts.
In the second semi final club team mates Nigel Stent and Peter Eyre did battle with Eyre comfortably running out the winner 31-14 to set up a final of the two Peters and what a final it turned out to be!
Eyre chiselled out an early lead in a fantastic match and at one stage led 7-1 in the first to 31 contest with Cowburn having to play catch up eventually levelling the scores at 27-27. Cowburn then went ahead for the first time in the match at 28-27, then again at 29-28 and yet again at 30-29 before Eyre levelled it at 30 points each. With no deuce in this particular format of the game it was a case of 'the next point wins' and Cowburn held his nerve to win it and take the title to leave Eyre Runner Up for the 3rd year in succession.
This week the League took a break from league matches with The quarter finals of The Handicap Shield taking place with two teams from Ryton Park making it through to the Semi Finals.
First through were Division Three side The Falcons who were away to Division One side MBE and despite MBE winning every game and therefore registering the maximum points possible it wasn't quite enough to take them through after the handicap was added at the end. MBE scored 378 points on the table with the Falcons trio of Jordan Potter and brothers Nathan and Regan Langley managing 99 but with a handicap of 288 to add at the end they got through by just 9 points eventually winning 387-378.
The other Ryton Park team to make it through were The Cougars who were up against fellow 3rd Division team and league leaders DTH Redlands Tarr Babies. For the Tarr Babies both Keiran Tutter and Daniel Cutts returned maximum points but Jack Tarr couldn't replicate their efforts losing to both Dave Lee and Ivan Stalworthy and only just edging out Dave Rix. Before the Handicap envelope was opened at the end The Tarr Babies had beaten The Cougars on the night by 360 points to 275 but with a 100 points awarded to The Cougars it was them who made it through to the Semi Finals 375 points to 360.
The Tarr Babies club colleagues The Rookies did however make it through the quarter final stage with a good win over the ever improving Stanley Street Cypriots for whom Graham Stent had a good night with both his team mates Adam Hamilton and Tom Parker scoring valuable points in their sides total. For the Rookies Alan Keeling managed to return the maximum points possible with both Bob Atkinson and Derek Piper not too far behind and they led 362- 293 before the handicap score was added at the end which was 47 in The Cypriots favour which all meant that the Rookies eventually won by a 362-340 score line.