After an encouraging display in a pre-season friendly against the current champions Bowland, Cartmel men’s darts team played County in their first league outing of the 2010/11 season. With County losing their first game, Cartmel fancied their chances of opening with a win.
Searching for a player to take on the role of a strong starter, Cartmel went for the experienced Mike Walton. With Ratidge at the helm for County, the game saw the players trading similar scores throughout and following each other with the double outshot. There were no big leads and it could have gone either way, but Ratidge clinched victory with a double nine finish to give County the first point.
Game two saw a newcomer to Cartmel darts take on an old stager from Fylde and County Bars. Throwing for Cartmel, Mark Lucas had a 100 point lead in the first game, with darts that nearly saw a 158 finish. Bar man Alistair was off the pace and Lucas saw the game off calmly with a 2-0 victory to level up the tie.
County’s Captain decided to get in on the action but lacked the composure to beat Cartmel’s big man Walter Taylor. With Withers taking the first leg Taylor turned up the pressure with regular trebles in the second game to rattle his opponent. Taylor then went on to wrap it up and fell another Captain, Cartmel with a 2-1 lead.
In a move to further the Cartmel lead, another debutant, but no stranger to the world of darts was put on the oche. Ben Smith aimed to replicate his form from the Doms league onto the board but his challenger Louis Ashburner, although of a similar standard, was able to hit the all important doubles and bring County level once more.
With James Fielho taking to the oche for County, another Cartmel new recruit aimed to knock him off balance. With Fielho hitting randomly across the board and somehow wining a leg, Cartmel’s Scott Gibson took the initiative and put in a good showing for a 2-1 win.
Cartmel’s lead was not to last long, as Cartmel’s fourth college darts novice of the night, Dan Williams, was not able to capitalise against Tony Ennis. Although playing well in spells, Williams fell to a 2-0 defeat throwing the match wide open.
To reassert Cartmel’s authority on the match it was time for Philip Flenley to get out his arrows and get going, which is what he did with an interesting treble three, double eight checkout in the first leg. The rest was reasonably comfortable to give him a 2-0 victory versus B. Hart.
County now sought to force the match into a deciding leg, choosing Matt Hobleoft as their player. James Whittaker had the job of trying to give Cartmel the victory but wasn’t consistent enough overall, even a nice ton couldn’t resuscitate his chances, as he slid to a 2-0 loss.
With the last game of the night finally being played at around 10:30, Cartmel Captain Mark Sercombe stepped up confidently in what could have been an extremely tense decider, and easily despatched of his opponent Tony Pace. With his steady darts, Sercombe made sure his opponent couldn’t catch him and ensured that Cartmel took all the spoils with a 2-0 victory to give his team a 5-4 overall win on the night.
