SWINGERS secured their opening victory of the Swan Studley Skittles League season as they saw off Team BG in the closest game of week four.
A good opening leg saw Swingers take a healthy 14-pin lead before Team BG responded by taking leg two to be only five pins behind.
However, that was as good as it got for Team BG because, try as they might, they could not dent their opponents’ lead further as the remaining three legs were all tied.
Swingers were finally left only 54 pins to win – a total that was always in doubt – and it needed last player Mary Withers to take her side over the line.
Russell Victory made 37, Norman Sutton 35 and Paul Clifton and Brenda Morris 33 each for the winners, while Team BG’s best came from Carl Baker 38 (11-stack), Ray Cartwright with 36 Margaret Sanders’ 33.
Paying the price for fielding a player short were Well Developed who slid to bottom of the table after a third straight loss from their opening three fixtures.
Well Developed returned a poor first leg score of 48 and opponents Swan took immediate advantage to lead by 14 pins.
Although that lead was reduced to ten pins after completion of leg four, Swan were not to be denied their first win of the season as they comfortably won the fifth leg.
Swan’s Carl Moorman finished with 36 pins and Al Lumb and Bob Haycock 34 each. There were 32 pins each for Well Developed’s Jim Child, Margueritte Bayley and Janina Brennan.
Alcester Nomads won their fourth straight game by comfortably beating an Alley Cats side short of two players.
This was Alley Cats’ third loss in their first three games despite Carl Gazeley making 37 pins, as did Pete Sollis with the help of a 13-stack, while Malcolm Batchelor finished with 34.
However, these good scores never looked likely to upset a Nomads team setting a hot pace at the top of the league as even better individual scores on the night came from Nomads’ Geoff Loat 45 (14 and 13-stacks), Alan Cummings with 41 and Alan Spreckley’s 38.
Results: Swingers 7.5 (303) Team BG 3.5 (298); Swan 8 (292 – ten players and 283 – nine players) Well Developed 3 (265 – nine players); Alcester Nomads 9 (329 – ten players and 286 – eight players) Alley Cats 2 (258 – eight players).
