THE Redditch Skittles League season took a back seat as the Triples Knockout competition took centre stage.
The first round group stages took place with the top three teams in each group to progress to the final stages.
At South Redditch Social Club, the Jumbo Jets A team trio of Rich Johnston, Rob Quartly and Mick Stanton qualified comfortably with a total of 128 pins with Johnston making 50 (13 stack) and Quartly 40 (10 stack).
Close behind with 123 pins were Tim Jones, and Jamie McGill , both with 42 pins, and Glyn Morley for Lodge Farmers A.
And three teams vied for the last qualifying spot as only five pins separated them going into the last leg.
Jumbo Jets B team of Dan Hill, Dave Marriott and Len Quartly then set the C and G A team 27 pins to tie to set up a sudden death play off.
But their trio of Rich Fisher, Paul Hollis and Dave Charlesworth missed by a whisker scoring 26. And it was disappointment too for the C and G B team of Jay Anon, Bryan Smith and Keith Edwards who, needing 24 to qualify, had a poor last leg score and finished bottom of the group.
The result of the group at Lodge Park Social Club was more clear cut with Lodge Farmers B team coming out on top by notching 127 pins when the Morris family of Frank, Sue and Rachel all made 40 or more scores.
The second qualifying place went to Nomads B of Andrew Coombes, Wendy Coombes and Jordan Bunn totalling 112 pins of which Andrew Coombes contributed 48.
Engineers A took the third place with 111 pins with Ian Greenway making 43 and well supported by Maurice Wroe and Luke Saunders.
Some way adrift from qualifying were Lodge Farmers C team of Richard Long, (scoring 40) and Lynne Long and Chris Pritchard, while Nomads C team of Phil Jones, Jim Child and Gordon Povey had ‘one of those games’ when nothing went right in mustering only 89 pins.
A late withdrawal of one triples team meant only one team would fail to qualify from the Redditch Borough Social Club group.
And it needed a bowl off between Nomads A and Bernie’s Bolts A, both ending with 105 pins, to decide the last qualifier.
The Bolts’ Mark West started the sudden death with a seven to which Nomads’ James Marshall replied with six.
Second man for Bolts, Jim Williamson, also made seven which Mac Eaton of Nomads made light work of by scoring a 13 stack to put Nomads in the driving seat.
Undaunted Bolts third player, Andy Gill-Smith then made a 12 stack to leave Nomads’ Alan Cummings needing, and securing, the eight pins to qualify.
And the first two qualifiers were Engineers B of Graham Hingley, Rob Baker and Andy Clewlow each scoring 40 or more in a team total of 124, and The Borough A of Scott Few making 44, Charlie Few scoring 41 and Tom Baker in a total of 116 pins.
