SNOOKER

 

C.I.U. TEAM Knock Out

 

                Spennymoor will meet Shildon Elm Road in the final after the two teams came through successfully in the semi finals.

                In the match between Newton Aycliffe, who are striving for the League Championship, and Spennymoor, who are working equally as hard to avoid relegation, played at Crowtrees, where Peter Laverick was the referee, the Moors received 40 points start in the aggregate total over five frames match.

                In the first frame Alan Rouell produced probably his best performance for some time when he beat Alan Keeney by three points in the frame in which both players made their best break of 21. This win moved the Moors 43 ahead.

                Richie Young played Spennymoor’s Paul Biddle in a tough safety dominated battle in which the players often took one red but were unable to follow with a colour. Biddle only led by seven on the colours with Young taking yellow and green. After further excellent safety by both, Biddle took the last three colours to win by 13 and stretch the Spennymoor lead to 56.

                Alan Clarke of Spennymoor played Michael Hewitt in a very even frame where neither player was able to open up a good lead. When they reached the pink the scores were level but Clarke managed to take the pink and then add the black to give Spennymoor a 13 point win and a 69 point overall lead.

                Newton Aycliffe managed to record their first frame win when Ian Halford played the Moors captain, Dennis Dodd. Halford struggled in the early stages of the frame but eventually struck his real form in the late stages when after a successful snooker, put in a 20 break and followed with most of the high value colours to win by 31 points, thus cutting the Spennymoor lead to 38 points.

                The final frame featured two very gifted players when Steve Colbeck played Spennymoor’s, Paul Davison. With 38 point lead for a player of Davison’s class things looked bleak for the new town and when he put in a 29 break Colbeck could well have conceded. To his credit he fought back courageously to close the gap to 18 points only to see Davison fortuitously take the brown and then sealed his team’s victory by adding the blue and pink for an overall 288-255 victory.        

                At Bearpark Stanley Central met Shildon Elm Road with Anthony Cooper the referee. The Central received six points start and were able to extend this when Ray Oliver beat Billy McCormack by 16 points. This lead was cut back to two when Shildon’s Andrew Tennant beat Jason Johnson by 20 points.

                In the third frame the Shildon captain, Lee Gardiner put his team ahead for the first time when he beat Sean McCallum by 20 points. Graeme Witton produced his normal efficient display for Shildon when he beat Alan Hogarth by 47 points.

                In the final frame Stanley’s Rob Hogarth faced an extremely difficult task of conceding 47 points to Paul Armstrong. A very solid display from Hogarth gave a win in the frame but only by eight points, meaning Shildon will appear in the final after their 240-201 victory.

 

Worthington C.I.U. Plate Final

 

                Meadowfield met Ferryhill A at Sherburn Village, where Alan Greener was the referee. The Ferryhill team received eight points start in the aggregate score match over five frames.

                The early part of the first frame was dominated by Ferryhill’s Trevor Bowden but in the later stages he took too many risks against Malcolm Hughes, resulting in a closer than anticipated result of a 12 point win.

                The second frame looked to be a saviour for Meadowfield when Stephen Hughes controlled the exchanges against Chris Wilkinson. However Wilkinson fought back with a 22 break but Hughes followed by taking most of the colours. Wilkinson however finished by taking pink and black to only lose by 18 and leave Meadowfield two points ahead.

                Ian Roddam opened out a lead in frame three against Meadowfield’s Michael McNay but then began to take excessive risks. This allowed McNay to steadily close the gap, but then he suffered when failing to escape from a number of snookers. McNay stuck to the task and only lost the frame by 11 points, leaving Ferryhill with an overall lead of nine points.

                Owen Howarth returned to league action for Meadowfield to replace players who were away on holiday. However he was unfortunate to meet Adrian Jones, who was in excellent form throughout with the highlight being a well constructed 50 break that gave him a 67 point victory.

                In the final frame Meadowfield’s Billy Penny faced the virtually impossible task of conceding 76 points start to Jonathan Lewis, who played without worries to win by 42 and make Ferryhill A the Plate winners by 320 points to 202.

 

Worthington CIU Summer League

 

                The only match played this week was the re-arranged game at Sacriston, where Thornley were the visitors. The encounter was a relegation struggle, which was won by the home team, but despite being their fourth win of the season, left them two points behind their visitors.

                Thornley won the first and last frames through Jimmy Evans and Ian Dinsdale, whilst Michael Evans, Kevin Davison and Jeff Evans took the home team to victory.

                Division Two result –Sacriston 3 Thornley 2.

                Second Division points: Langley Park 36; Ferryhill A, Crowtrees and Shildon Elm Road 35 each; Hunwick B 26; Thornley 26; Stanley Central 24; Sacriston 23.

 

Crook Snooker League

 

                League leaders, the Mill House A slipped to their second defeat of the season when they only took two points from the visiting Crown A through Gavin Witton and David Stephenson. The Crown had singles wins from Doug McCarthy, John Howe, Colin Thompson and John Howarth before Howe and Thompson added the doubles.

                First Division: Mill House A 2 Crown A 5; King’s Head B 2 Travellers Rest B 5; Howden Australian 4 King’s Head A 3. Mill House B had a bye.

                First Division points: Mill House A 42; Travellers Rest B 37; King's Head B 31; Crown A 29; Howden Australian 26; King's Head A 23; Mill House B 22.

                In the Second Division the Travellers Rest A strengthened their top spot when they only dropped one point to the visiting New Market, who had Shaun Umpelby as their only scorer. Marl Ellis, John Carroll, Scott Weston, Aaron Cowen and Steven Todd won singles for the hosts before Cowen and Walton added the doubles.

                Second Division: Surtees 5 Willington Queen’s 2; White Swan 4 Crook Queen’s Head 3; Travellers Rest A 6 Tow Law New Market 1.

                Second Division points: Travellers Rest A 46; White Swan 40; Surtees 32; Tow Law New Market 31; Crook Queen's Head 28; Willington Queen's Head 24; Crown B 9.

 

 

ENDS>

Submitted by Charlie Donaghy