There were a few more Carlisle Billiard League matches played in Qzone on Thursday evening and without doubt the standards for some of the less experienced players is improving with each game they play.
In the Red League, David Turley, in his first year of billiards, showed good form in both of his matches, grabbing a maximum six points as he won both games and passed the 300 mark in both.
In his first game versus Ian Cleminson Dave had breaks of 21, 22 and 24 as he ran up a healthy 338 to 245 victory.
His second match was against Ex Servicemen’s Club team-mate Stuart Burgess and he went a touch better with a nice 28 break before winning comfortably 319 to 206. Those two results for Dave have jumped him up the league into mid-table with a couple of games to go.
Two of the region’s top players faced each other as Mike Griffiths played Paul Whelan in the Red League as well. Mike has scored well all season without managing to quite hit the big break he is capable of. However relentless breaks this time of 23, 22,25 and 33 saw Mike win in a good-natured match by 313 to 202.
Another player who won two games was Archie Walker in the White League. Archie upset the applecart by winning against Peter Stanyer.
Peter has had a fine season and continued to score really well with breaks of 56, 32 and 21, however, with the handicap mark that he receives, Archie did enough to stay in contention and pipped Peter at the post 267 vs 261.
In Archie’s second match he faced Mark Taylor who started off well and had a good break of 25, but in the second half hour Mark couldn’t get going and once again Archie had enough in the tank, winning 268 to 256.
Facing Paul Scott, Nigel Lewthwaite had an excellent 52 break and a 25 and 24. Scotty played some good billiards and in yet another nail biter it was Nigel who just edged the match 297 to 294!
In the final match John Metcalfe was standing in as a replacement against Peter Dean. Peter had a handicap of 56 points and got off to a great start with a 22 break which gave him a comfortable head start over the hour.
Gradually John was able to eat into that lead to take the lead with 30 seconds to go. Peter came to the table four points behind and desperate to grab his first win.
In his haste Peter was about to play the wrong ball, but John very sportingly pointed out that he was about to commit a foul shot. Peter stepped back, struck the correct cue ball and this enabled him to grab four points for a draw (323 to 323).
Selection has taken place for the English Amateur Inter-Counties Championship at Landywood Snooker Club in Walsall at the end of April.
It will be the first time that Cumbria will be sending representatives to play in the event and compete against the best players around England.
Team A: Mike Griffiths, Peter Stanyer and Paul Whelan. Team B: Nigel Lewthwaite, John Metcalfe and Mark Taylor. We wish them well in the tournament.
