Workington’s United Club have claimed the Division Two title in the L&L Property Contractors Snooker League.
They were confirmed as winners even though they went down 3-2 to Division One’s Workington Golf Club in a hard fought contest.
The penultimate fixture started well for the Division Two leaders with a black ball victory from Dave Chapman but the Golf Club hit back with a victory from Stephen Jackson to level the match.
Another nail-biter saw Mark Carruthers put the Golf Club 2-1 up. However it wasn’t all doom and gloom for the defeated Clive Lister as his superior win percentage means he takes the Division Two leading player title.
A thumping win in frame four for Lewis Tilley ensured the golfers won the match, nevertheless it was United Club captain Andrew Mitchelhill who ensured his team won the Division Two title outright with a victory in the last to the delight of his team mates.
The United Clubs title claim is on the back of the fact they are on 41 points and cannot be caught by Workington’s Veterans Club B who don’t have another fixture.
Division One’s Workington Golf Club sit on a 42 point total and barring a collapse next week, coupled with other results going against them, they are almost guaranteed to finish third.
Division One league leaders Workington Conservative Club came back from 2-0 down away to Workington Veterans Club A to record yet another 3-2 victory in a season that has seen them win 15 out of 15.
The match started with a win from Vets A captain Kevin Basnett and in constructing a break of 64 in the process the Division One leading player also moved to the top of the break aggregate table.
A late season return to form saw Mark Tatton control frame two and eventually put Vets A 2-0 up.
It was Cons’ two-time county champion Alan Moore who started the comeback trail in style, winning by 80 points to pull it back to 2-1.
Cons’ Ryan Barker seemed to feed off Moore’s confidence in the next to take it to a decider and as Stuart Shepherd made his season’s best break of 39 in the final frame it proved to be enough to take his team over the line.
Even though Cons are unbeaten in Division One the point a frame format sees them lead by a slender two points (56 in total) going into next week’s final fixture against Division Two’s Maryport Social.
As other results returned in the Vets A’s favour, their current total of 39 points ensures they will be playing Division One snooker again next season.
Workington’s Station Road B made sure they went into the final week of the season with a chance of retaining their Division One title with a 5-0 home win against fellow townies Vets Club B.
A 32 break from Shaun Ayre took care of the first and as Simon Frazer won frame two easily Station B took a 2-0 lead.
Peter O’Hagan wasted no time in making it 3-0 and with team mate Alan McLeod winning a high scoring fourth frame Station B led 4-0.
In the final frame of the match Station B captain Stephen O’Hagan made sure that concentration levels were maintained to record a victory that could make all the difference with just next week’s game against Vets A remaining.
Whitehaven’s Rack Shack put themselves in an extremely strong position for securing the remaining Division Two top four play-off spot with a 3-2 home win over Workington Division One side, Station Road A.
A Stephen Harrison victory put the Rack Shack 1-0 up but with Tom Thompson winning the next comprehensively parity was achieved at 1-1.
Chris McKelvey put the Whitehaven team in the lead again in a relatively high scoring third frame.
However it was Station Road A who quickly returned the favour with a victory from Mike Walker to take the match to a decider.
In the final frame of the match a close affair developed, before Wayne Sinclair grabbed the initiative to take the frame and match in a competitive contest.
The Rack Shack sit fourth in Division Two on 21 points and unfortunately Station A face relegation from Division One as their 31 point total cannot be improved on sufficiently enough to avoid it.
