Lancaster won both the Men’s and Women’s darts to secure eight more points towards victory on a night that saw a complete whitewash of York in the bar sports.
Lancaster Women’s darts team won 7-2, all the more impressive considering they had to bounce back from going 2-0 down. It was Josie Foster who pulled the score back to 2-2 before Lucy ‘Barnaby’ Barnsby checked out on madhouse (double one) to celebrate her birthday in style by putting Lancaster into the lead for the first time on the night.
The next game was the pivotal moment in the match, it could have seen Lancaster go within 1 game of winning the match, or seen York tie the scores at 3-3. Up stepped Claire Walker, unbeaten all year for Pendle to win convincingly 2-0 to take Lancaster within touching distance of 4 more points.
At 4-2 it was time to call upon a calm head for high pressure game, and none other than Vice-President (Sports) Sue Wynes was selected to play. She proved her Captain correct by overcoming any potential nerves to secure what seemed a fairly comfortable win 2-0, and took Lancaster into an unassailable 5-2 lead and therefore brought home the invaluable 4 points to add to Lancaster’s increasingly hefty total.
The eighth game of the night was in fact the first to go to 1-1, and the only match not to finish 2-0 in the Women’s darts all night, before Lancaster made it 6-2.
Fran Heaphy was called upon to round off proceedings in style, easily despatching off her opponent to make the score line 7-2 and finish off the match much faster than anyone could have anticipated. Lancaster’s win was courtesy of a great all round team performance and much more clinical finishing than their opponents.
As the Women had won in double-quick time it meant that the Men’s match was starting slightly earlier than anyone would have expected. Up first for the Men was joint university captain Tom Reynolds who was unfortunate to lose the opening game of the night, seeing Lancaster go 1-0 down.
Lancaster had already shown that they were not afraid to go behind though, and that was proved to be the case again. Alex Smith the York University darts Captain, put in a fantastic performance to make sure Lancaster did not go 2-0 behind and levelled the scores at 1-1.
Pete Watt then lost to see Lancaster go 2-1 down, but that lead was short lived yet again as the team and fans rallied behind the time, before the fight back began. Andrew Parker played the best darts of the night so far to take the score back to 2-2, before Dave Saunders easily picked off his opponent sending the crowd into a frenzy.
Easily the man of the match on the night was Rich Floyd who rarely, if ever, missed the 20, he completely outclassed his opponent, putting Lancaster within touching distance yet again.
Up stepped Roses Captain James Stone to attempt to secure the points for Lancaster. However in spite of his opponent seemingly being singled out for the most ‘banter’ on the night, his opponent stood firm and unfortunately for Lancaster hit his doubles before Stone did, and in doing so gave York a faint hope of winning the darts.
However this was cut short for York, as Patrick Williamson comprehensively battered his opponent, fearlessly checking out 74 in two darts to win the Match for Lancaster. Ben Staley won the final match of the night to round off a terrific evening for Lancaster University in the bar sports.
