31/03/2023
GAZETTE TROPHY
Lightning A scratch beat Kingfisher A by 75 points.
Close rivals Lightning A and Kingfisher A met in the only Gazette match of the week. Both teams had changes from their normal sides which was significant in the ladies as Lightning produced a match winning performance to gain 70 points. The mens and mixed were more evenly matched with Lightning's men gaining 12 points and Kingfisher gaining 7 in the mixed. Jenny Stothard had the best scores of the night with 57 for Lightning whilst Adrian Greenwood and Tom Lowe were the only Kingfisher players to end the match with a positive score.
BRIDGEWOOD TROPHY
Hesketh Fleetwood C +40 beat Kirkham Charter A by 55 points
Kirkham's ladies, expectedly, had a big win in set 1 to recover 14 points. However in the next 2 sets HF won all 4 games but more importantly gained 23 points. The mens were much closer with 6 even games to leave HF points ahead by 51 points including the handicap. The first 2 mixed sets were fairly even but in the 3rd, Linda Adams and Will Stafford comfortably won and gained 15 points for HF. With 3 sets remaining HF were now 64 points ahead. Despite a huge 23 point win from Kirkham, the experienced HF comfortably won the final 2 sets by 14 points. Kirkham's Amelia Parker had the best score of the night with 39 points but Linda Adams +15 and Derek Hill +17 helped HF safely through to the semis.
Lids -40 beat Kirkham Charter B by 27 points.
Lids clawed back 20 points after the levels mainly thanks to their 3rd set where Pauline Weafer and Helena Lemper gained 19 points. Lids strength in the mixed was apparent as they won 9 games and gained 47 points. In particular, Linda Settle and partner Andrew Hardaker won a huge 44 points from their 4 games whilst the other Lids pairs gave nothing away. No surprise that Linda and Andrew were the top scorers with +51 and +49 respectively. For Kirkham, only Jamie Sedgwick was able to post a positive points score.
Lightning B -140 beat Stanley B by 32 points.
Champions Lightning B quickly cut down Stanley's handicap with great performances from their ladies and mens who contributed equally to pull back 88 points. Lightning started the mixed only 52 points behind but by the end of the first 3 sets managed to reduce the deficit to only 8 points. It was in the 4th mixed set that Lightning moved ahead by 13 points which was consolidated with wins in the final 2 sets. Karen Pye, Polly Logan and Rob Cockerill all contributed over 60 points.
