Snooker: Hill on top after first ranking competition

Second round scheduled for 14 Nov

It was Darryl Hill who came out on top after the first IoM Billiards and Snooker Association snooker ranking competition held at The Cue Zone IoM. Considering it was half term there was a decent entry of sixteen players for this scratch event and apologies were received from a number of players.

After the round robin stage, the top two players from the four groups went through to the knockout stages. The best of three frames quarter finals ended Calum Gardner 2-1 Chris Dagnall, Jamie Wilson 2-1 Marek Kenny, Darryl Hill 2-0 Shaun Roberts and Paul Smyth 0-2 Johnny Myers. This final match should have gone to a decider when Myers one up, fluked the pink to win the match but hit the black with his cue! Smyth potted the pink and had the black over the pocket and somehow missed it, rolling it dead weight so Myers potted it.

In the semi finals, Myers, the only group runner up to make it through saw his good run come to an end losing 2-1 narrowly losing a decider with Calum Gardner. Myers won the £10 prize kindly sponsored by Ken Kinrade for the best performing player with a league handicap of 21 or above. In the other semi final Jamie Wilson bowed out losing 2-0 to Darryl Hill. This was a repeat of the last ever under 21 final played on the island which was some time ago! Wilson too had a day to be proud of, topping the high breaks list for which he received £5.

The number of breaks made of 20 and over totalled a magnificent 49 which was remarkable and encouraging considering some of the islands big hitters were unavailable. Jamie Wilson’s effort of 72 narrowly pipped Darryl Hill’s 71 and 70. The full list of high breaks was,

** 

Jamie Wilson: 72, 50, 22x2, 21x2 and 20.

Darryl Hill: 71, 70, 67, 53, 50, 46x2, 45, 39, 37x2, 25 and 23

Alec Oates: 37 and 20

Calum Gardner: 35, 30, 25, 24x4, 22 and 20x3

Johnny Myers: 32, 28, 27, 23, 22x2 and 21x2

Chris Dagnall: 27, 25, 23 and 20

Ste MacDonald: 27

Marek Kenny: 22

Adam Dooley: 21x2

** 

The final, played on the Star table between Gardner and Hill saw both playing well and this went too a decider in which Hill ran out a convincing 87-0 winner, including a 46 break. This didn’t quite match the back to back tons he’d had in practice earlier, a 104 and 135 total clearance. 

Thanks are being passed on to The Cue Zone for the use of their facilities and the organising team including Darryl, Jane Hill and Ken Kinrade and to all of the players who made it such a success. The second of the six ranking events is not far away and takes place on 14 November.