A narrow victory for Horsham Spinners over bottom team Brighton was enough to secure the Horsham Spinners Summer Team League Division 1 title, as nearest challengers Foresters A narrowly lost their match to Pimplers.
There was a ‘photo finish’ for second place, with two teams ending up on 40 points (four points below Spinners). These two teams were Foresters A and Horsham Hawks and it was the former who got the silver medals, as they won one more team match than Horsham Hawks.
It’s nice to see two cadet players playing at such a high level. Rory Scott of Horsham Spinners won the Individual Award for highest average for a regular player, with a perfect record of 21 out of 21, without even having to resort to using long pimples.
Click here to view final league tables and averages
Brighton 4 Horsham Spinners 5
Rory Scott got his seventh maximum of the season from seven matches to get a full house, beating both Brandon Bennett and Minesh Agnihotri 3-0 and Danny Burns 3-1.
Zach Hodges (just turned 14) gave great support, beating both Burns and Agnihotri 3-0, but losing to Bennett 0-3. Sam Watts (also 14) had an off night and lost all three, but only just lost to Bennett 11-9 in the fifth and to Agnihotri 3-1.
Foresters A 4 Pimplers 5
This was the first match to finish and when Horsham Spinners players heard that Foresters A had lost to to Pingers 4-5, they could relax, but then the focus switched to who would get the silver medals.
Dave Steel was unsure what time he would get back, as he was flying back that day, so reserve Malcolm Barber was deputising for him. As it happened, Steel arrived not long after 8pm and could have played. Barber failed to win any matches, just picking up the one end against Stuart Vincent. At least Steel can rest easy in the knowledge that even had he played and won a maximum, it would still not have been enough to win the league.
Mike Robinson for Foresters A got a confident maximum, only dropping the one game to Vincent. Richard Steel picked up a vital win over Terry Dean in three, which enabled Foresters A to get second place. However, he lost 3-0 to both Vincent and Phil Harrison.
Crawley Community 3 Horsham Hawks 6
The end of this match was quite exciting, as Horsham Hawks had raced into a 4-0 lead and needed to win 7-2 or better to get second place. It was then 5-2 with two matches left to play, which were played simultaneously. Hawks had to win both of them to get silver.
Up to that point Juan Munoz-Lopez had had a great win over Paul Newton 12-10 in the fifth and had also beaten Graham Green 3-0. Graham Carter had also won his two matches up to that point, with a 3-1 victory over Green and a 3-0 defeat of Keith Barber.
Freddy Goodall had won one of his three matches, with a cracking win over Barber 18-16 in the fifth end, but losing 3-0 to Newton and 3-1 to Green.
Back to the last two matches. Munoz-Lopez completed his maximum, with a 3-1 defeat of Barber, but unfortunately for Horsham Hawks, Carter lost to Newman in four.
Ping Rams 3 Foresters B 6
The awkward style of Roger Pingram reaped its rewards against Foresters B and he had an excellent maximum, impressively defeating Dan Pound 3-1, Charlie Usher 3-1 and Chris Pullinger 3-0.
However, his team-mates Sue Pingram and Tom Kinga could not add to his score, as neither could manage a win. Sue picked up an end against both Pound & Usher, but not against Pullinger, whereas Kinga only won one end against Usher.