South Devon and Torbay Table Tennis League: HALWELL TURN ON THE PRESSURE

While the reigning South Devon & Torbay Table Tennis League Division 1 champions Newton Abbot Batmen prepare for up and coming fixtures, challengers for the title, Halwell A seized the opportunity to leap to the top of table with wins over Brixham Trawlers and Halwell B and took a share of the points in a tight draw versus Newton Abbot Academicals. The results put the 2006-7 season champions 14 points ahead and 2 matches ahead of Batmen.

Halwell A’s meeting against Brixham Trawlers was the most fruitful, winning that tie 9-1 with only Trawlers in-form Alan Maynard able to take a point against Rod Sugden and come close to a second against Dave Wadling, losing 11-5 in the fifth set.

Halwell’s meeting against their “B” team was a close affair with all team players Mick Atkinson, Rod Sugden and Dave Wadling succumbing to the might of Kevin Nicholls who took a maximum with only one set dropped against Wadling.

The closest of the three ties, against Newton Abbot Academicals, saw Joe Clifford Jnr repeat the Nicholls feat, again only losing one set against an out of touch Dave Wadling, who also fell against Jim McIvor 11-8 in the fifth set.

With other teams in the division both winning and losing matches since the Christmas break, it makes for an exceptionally tight fight for third spot. The team currently holding that position, Taverners, enjoyed two colossal fights against Full of Beans and Dawlish Aces, which across the two matches, only seven games were won in straight sets and seven went the distance. Taverners’ Colin Harrop was able to counter Full of Beans’ Richard Jessop high looping forehands by standing up close to the table to take a maximum that night, whilst Gerald Norton gained a full three points for Taverners against Dawlish Aces in a mammoth scrap that ended 7-3 in Taverners’ favour.

Hot on Taverners’ heels, and with only eight points separating them are Halwell B, Newton Abbot Academicals, Brixham Gulls, Brixham Trawlers and Full of Beans who all picked up vital points in their various meetings. At the foot of the table, but with games in hand are Dawlish Aces who will be looking to cut the deficit in the coming weeks.

The big clash in the battle for the Division 2 crown was the Marldon derby, Marldon versus Marldon Millers, who were only separated by a single point before the meeting. Marldon took an early lead as Dave Atkin, Graham Holmes and Helen Parton all won their opening games against Mike Wickens, Alan Tyrrell and Nigel Hunt respectively. Tyrrell began the fightback for Millers with a four sets win over Atkin before Parton scraped a marathon encounter for Marldon to keep the lead to three points. A comfortable win for Hunt against Holmes began the Millers resurgence as two big five-setters saw Tyrrell and Hunt even the score. It was Holmes for Marldon that won the last of the singles matches to set up Parton and Atkin to drive home the 6-4 win in a four-set doubles contest against Millers’ Hunt and Tyrrell.

With a further 10-0 whitewash over 21 Up, Marldon were able to create a five-point gap at the top over their stablemates who themselves won a crucial away tie against Barnabas Sports Trust who lie in fourth.

Tykes were able to hold on to their third spot with a win over Brixham Sharks that could have gone either way. Kevin Ayling played a fantastic match to take all three of his games over Keith Hawkins, Sharks’ newest recruit Geoff Beavington and team captain Mike Harper. Ayling was well supported by Pat Darch who only just missed out on his own maximum falling in three to Hawkins.

Tykes repeated a 6-4 victory against fourth-placed Barnabas Sports Trust in which Pat Darch again played well to halt Barnabas’ Ed Thompson taking a maximum by beating him 11-8 in the fifth set.

Lowly placed Hasbeens notched up their very first victory of the season by winning over Dalwlish Diamonds 6-4. No mean feat having lost out to the Dawlish team 8-2 in their first meeting at the beginning of the season. The man of the match for Hasbeens was Dave Alexander who won all three of his games against Don Beesley, Derek Mothersele and Karolina Czyz. Although Hasbeens still remain eight points adrift at the foot of the table, the win will no doubt instil some much needed confidence to begin a decent run.

In Division 3, Brixham Pirates still lead the way, two points ahead of Dawlish Dinosaurs, but with the same number of games in hand. Pirates were held to a 5-5 draw in the Brixham derby against the ever-improving Swifts. It took Joe Holmes and Patrik Herget to see off Tom Schwenn and Louie Russel 9-11, 11-9, 11-5, 7-11, 11-6 in the doubles to avoid Pirates’ first defeat of the season. Swifts’ Tom Schwenn notched up his first maximum of the season and keeps Swifts’ interested in that Division 3 title.

Although Dawlish Dinosaurs were unable to claim any victories in their three matches since the Christmas break, they were able to hold second position ahead of Torre Table Tennis Club who played brilliantly to see off Newton Team Spirits 9-1 with Connor Adams and Connor Lowe able to win all of their games. Torre were unable to create any such impact over Brixham Swifts leaving that second spot open to any one of five teams.

Dawlish Drifters’ Frank Frain and Bruce Freeman helped their team to another crushing blow over Newton Team Spirits to keep them in the frame, while John Graham from Brixham Rebels took a maximum without dropping a leg in their encounter against 21 Down and only fell short of another on his meeting against Mike Coxhead of Dawlish Dinosaurs who beat Graham in three to remain unbeaten so far this season.