The last week of scheduled fixtures before the Christmas break saw some interesting clashes in the Hastings Table Tennis League.
In Division One, Academy C have underachieved to date, but they moved off the bottom with a 6-4 defeat of Bexhill B. Graham Gillett returned for Bexhill but his maximum was not enough for a share of the points with Rose Rainton and Robin Gibbs both winning two for Academy. Three clashes went the distance and decided the end result; Academy’s Sheila King was involved in two of these, losing 4-11 in the fifth to Pete Robinson but beating Alan McCleave by the same score. Rainton beat Robinson 11-8 in their decider.
Academy A lead the table with seven wins out of seven, but their ten point lead is misleading as their main rivals have two games in hand. This week’s victims were Tackleway A who went down 9-1 with Paul Barry and Ryan Heselden unbeaten and Nathan Darby winning two for the Academics. Tackleway’s Arthur Bracken, still a junior, came into this match on a run of 14 wins out of 15 but this was a sterner test. To no-one’s surprise, Bracken was far from overawed, beating Darby and taking games from Barry and Heselden.
Academy B beat Hollington A 7-3 with a straight games maximum from Dave Butler and two wins for Jamie Martin while Kevin Barry won two for Hollington.
Two unbeaten teams met in Division Two in a match that more than lived up to expectations as leaders Tackleway C went down 3-7 at Bexhill D, who retained their 100% record. Juniors Oli Matthews and Leon Hyde both won three for Bexhill who were fast out of the blocks, leading 4-1 before Tackleway fought back to be 3-5 down, with the last four clashes going the distance. This trend continued with Hyde beating Adrian Goodrum 11-8 in the fifth and Matthews beating Dan Rickaby 12-10, also in the fifth. Tackleway still lead by a point from Academy D, but four points adrift are Bexhill D, with two games in hand, and Hollington B with one game in hand.
Academy D maintained their challenge with a 9-1 win at Tackleway D where Andy Furnival and Terry Dean were unbeaten. Martin Richards was denied a maximum by Keith Lindsay’s recovery from 1-2 down.
Maximums from Peter Littley and Andrew Edwards saw Monarchs B home 7-3 at Bexhill E. Littley won his three in straight games but Edwards had victories at deuce in the fifth over both Ed Lawrie and Trevor Towner.
With the top two out of action, there were some close matches in Division Three. Tackleway H and Academy E drew 5-5 with Andy Murphy winning three and Daniel Quinn-Graham two for Academy and Matt Gilman two for Tackleway. Murphy got MOTM with a narrow five-game defeat of Gilman.
There was another draw between Hollington C and Tackleway E, where Phil Bailey was unbeaten for Hollington and Sachin Davis and Stephen Milton won two each for Tackleway.
The only winners in Division Three this week were Tackleway F who beat Tackleway G 6-4 with Andy Holmes winning three and Chris Floyd two for the F side and Stuart Batchelor winning two for the losers.
