WITH three wins each on the bounce, both Alley Cats and Maudslay profited when their latest victories in the Swan Studley Skittles League saw them both move up two places in the table.
Alley Cats played Swan in a bottom of the table clash which was the week’s closest game. Swan won the first leg by three pins, before Alley Cats won leg two to snatch the lead by three pins themselves, then nick leg three by a single pin to lead by four pins, only for Swan to turn the tables and win leg four to regain the lead by three pins.
When Swan’s last leg yielded 65 pins it left Alley Cats wanting a daunting 69 to win the match to record a third straight success and they started well when opener Loz Gazeley pitched in with a superb 16-stack.
Despite the odd wobble, Gazeley’s team-mates scored well to leave last man Malcolm Batchelor wanting just four pins and he delivered, making six.
Gazeley finished with 41 pins and Sam Billyard and Tony O’Connor 35 each. For Swan, the loss meant a return to the bottom of the table, despite Roy Salmon, for the second week running, top-scoring with 36 followed by Helen Racki and Scot Reynolds making 35 and 32 respectively.
Maudslay’s climb came at the expense of Lodge Farmers who they replaced in second spot. This was a comfortable win for Maudslay who won each of the five legs to take maximum points.
Thirty pins adrift after the first three legs, and with the game effectively lost, Lodge Farmers at least staged a belated recovery by only narrowly losing the last two legs.
Maudslay, with three successive wins and all with big pin totals, had good scores from Paul Matthews (39), Dennis Compton (36) and 35 each from Lyn Fryer, Tom Roberts and Keith Fryer.
Out-of-sorts Lodge Farmers had Patsy Kane making 37, Tim Jones 35 and 33 apiece from Roger Powell and Glyn Morley.
Having built a 17-pin advantage after leg two, Engineers got a shock as opponents Well Developed struck back in leg three to reduce the deficit to only four when totalling 71 pins – which could have been so much better had two players not missed the chance to make big double-figure stacks.
Then, after such a good leg score, Well Developed inexplicably managed only 45 in leg four. This let in Engineers who took that leg by 21 pins for an overall lead of 25 before Well Developed again scored heavily with 68 pins to take leg five for a valuable extra point.
Engineers had Mark Ganderton with 39, Luke Saunders 36 and Andy Clewlow and Ian Greenway 35 each. There were scores of 36 each from Well Developed’s Dave Bevan and in-form Martin Brennan and 34 from Jim Child.
Results: Swan 3 (298) Alley Cats 8 (301); Maudslay 10 (339) Lodge Farmers 1 (300); Engineers 8 (320) Well Developed 3 (299).
