Martin holds his nerve to win it for Puddletown

Puddletown Wanderers 470 Marco Wanderers 469

In a cracking match, Puddletown upset the form book to secure a deserved victory against Marco. With both teams smashing the previous alley record with the new pins at Bladen, the match went all the way to the final ball of the evening. Marco got off to a slow start with a 55 leg which Puddletown pounced on by hitting an excellent 75, and with a further 8 pins gained on the next leg Puddletown opened up a 28 pin lead. Marco responded to the challenge with a 77 leg to pull the lead back to 17, however over the fourth and fifth legs the home side maintained the scoring to extend their lead to 22 with 2 legs to go. A superb leg of 83 by the visitors put Puddletown under pressure which they responded well to in hitting a 69 leg thanks in part to a cracking 14 stick up by ‘Jocko’. With the lead down to 8, Marco hit a final leg of 68 to leave 61 to win for the home side, try as they might the stick up did not arrive to take the pressure off and it came down to last man Martin Tucker needing a 9 to win. After his first ball, Martin was left with a running 3 and a split 2 to clear, the second ball cleared the running 3 and with all possible results still open a sweet as you like split two was taken to secure a much needed 2 points for Puddletown. For the home side ‘Jocko’ was top score with 69, with good support from Luke Raines 66, Ian Belt with 65 and finally Tony Belt with 64. For Marco the ‘Penney’s’ Ian and Vaughan led the way with 67 and 64 respectively.