Phyllis Court retain Advantage League title following final day close encounter

PHYLLIS Court D, who were missing regular captain Ruth Raunkiaer, retained the Southern Croquet Federation Advantage League title last week when they beat Ryde Club 9-7 in a close final.

Bob Clapp was the star performer for the hosts, winning all four of his games, as Ryde matched Phyllis Court win for win in the first three of four rounds.

Dee McKibbin skippered Phyllis Court and got off to a good start with a 9-3 win against Ryde captain Mick Abbot despite conceding a two-hoop advantage, and Clapp also won 6-4 against Martin Briggs.

McKibbin was dominant again in the second round in winning 7-1 against Ryde’s Nick Westmore and Clapp got to his required five hoops target before Harry Oldham reached his seven.

Phyllis Court’s Carol Huntington and Philip Rowley both played well without winning in the two morning rounds and between them were just one hoop short three times out of four, sending the team match into lunch, tied at 4-4.

Huntington registered her first win by a single point in the third round as Clapp kept visitor Westmore looking for a maiden victory and their wins kept the team match 6-6 with four games to play.

In the last round, Rowley came from behind to beat Westmore 7-4 and Huntington won for the second time 7-5 against Oldham, allowing Phyllis Court to start celebrations, as Clapp was well in front against Abbott and he fittingly brought home the crucial third victory that won the team match.

McKibbin chased Briggs all the way to his win in the head-to-head match between the two number ones as Ryde got one win back as a consolation, but the team match ended 9-7 to Phyllis Court D and McKibbin was presented with the SCF Advantage League cup.

Elsewhere last week, Chris Roberts and Eva Kompanik won the Phyllis Court Restricted Doubles tournament which attracted a full field of 16 pairs for the first time in a number of years.

Most of the morning block games went with seedings, but the biggest upset was Kevin and Maureen Ward’s win against the in-form Rob Eagle and Helen Essa, which brought the former pair qualification for the afternoon main knock-out phase at the expense of the latter.

Eagle and Essa only lost that one game all day and, having missed the cut, cruised to win the consolation plate event.

Roberts and Kompanik’s closest game was in their quarter-final versus Michael Marcel and Tony Peperell, whose respective ball placements and clearance strokes kept them ahead for the whole game, and when Roberts was forced to run hoop 12 and leave his junior partner to play their side’s first approach shot to 13, the smart money was with their opponents. Kompanik played her approach well and good enough to put doubt in the mind of Marcel when playing his potential game winning stroke which he could only nestle into the jaws of the hoop.

For once Peperell mis-cued his clearance of Roberts’s ball and it ran into a difficult angled jumping position from which, and with no other choice, he nailed the jump for the winning score.

Meanwhile, Robin Coates and Carol Wadsworth, Dee McKibbin and John Rumford, and the Wards, all emerged from their quarters to fill the other semi-final berths.

Coates and Wadsworth beat the Wards 7-2 and Roberts and Kompanik won a second close knock-out tight game 7-5 over McKibbin and Rumford to reach the final that didn’t start until after 5pm.

As the light began to fade at the final, Kompanik’s relentlessly good approach positioning provided allowed Roberts’s power clearances to control most of the hoop battles for a steady 7-5 victory.