Round TWO : wins for Pontefract, Alba Storm & Crawley

The 2022/23 PSL season continued on Tuesday 22nd November with three more matches in Round Two.

Pontefract continued their winning start with home win over Birmingham Lions, leaving the University team winless after two rounds.

After an opening win for Lucy Turmel, Stuart Macgregor put the Lions level as he won the top string match, but Hollie Naughton and Chris Simpson gave Pontefract a second 3-1 win.

Pontefract 3-1 Birmingham Lions
Lwamba Chileshi 1-3 Stuart Macgregor 1-11, 11-9, 4-11, 9-11
Hollie Naughton 3-0 Kiera Marshall 11-8, 11-9, 11-8
Chris Simpson 3-1 Will Salter 7-11, 11-3, 11-5, 11-10
Lucy Turmel 3-0 Olivia Besant 11-3, 11-4, 11-5

St George’s Hill were at home on their all-glass to Crawley, the PSL Cup Champions who are making their full PSL debut having had a bye in Round One. The match looked finely poised on paper, and so it proved as it went down to the wire.

Five game wins for Torrie Malik and Charlie saw the opening matches shared and the home side edged ahead as Jasmine Hutton beat Katie Malliff, again in five. Although Nathan Lake took the first game of the final match, Rui Soares stormed back to take the next three, giving Crawley the win 10-9 on games.

St George’s Hill 2-2 Crawley (9-10)
Nathan Lake 1-3 Rui Soares 11-5, 10-11, 4-11, 7-11
Jasmine Hutton 3-2 Katie Malliff 11-7, 10-11, 11-9, 3-11, 11-8
Charlie Lee 3-2 Curtis Malik 11-9, 9-11, 11-5, 8-11, 11-6
Alicia Mead 2-3 Torrie Malik 8-11, 11-8, 11-3, 7-11, 9-11

Alba Storm travel down from Scotland to take on Nottingham University, another match that looked close on paper, but the visitors got off to a flying start with 3-0 wins for Alison Thomson and Rory Stewart, and a 3-2 win for Donna Lobban sealed the victory.

The final match also went the distance, Declan James coming from well down in the fifth to force a sudden-death point which went the way of Greg Lobban.

Nottingham 0-4 Alba Storm 
Declan James 2-3 Greg Lobban 9-11, 11-8, 8-11, 11-9, 10-11
Millie Tomlinson 2-3 Donna Lobban 11-8, 10-11, 3-11, 11-10, 4-11
Owain Taylor 0-3 Rory Stewart 5-11, 10-11, 6-11
Faiza Zafar 0-3 Alison Thomson 7-11, 8-11, 10-11

PSL Table after Round Two

You can watch replays of the matches at Nottingham and St George’s via the Scoreboard.

Round Three is on Tue 22nd December :  Crawley v RAC, Nottingham v St George’s and Alba Storm v Pontefract.