STOURBRIDGE B claimed a narrow first leg advantage over their A team in the Worcester Inter-League semi-final.

There was some top quality snooker on display at Norton Social in the first leg of this semi-final with Alan Hooper opening with a fine 52 break before Adam Ness recovered well to lose by only nine points in this aggregate scores match.

On the adjacent table, on which he plays so well, Ashley Aston had runs of 28 and 44, but was restricted to a winning margin of 36 as Dave Green cleared the last four colours. The B team then eased to an overall advantage to 87 points through Karl Ashmore, in great touch with a 49 break and Jason Hickman, who won by 15 after his opponent, Rob Clark’s, unlucky in-off black.

Callum Downing then extended the advantage in the final frame with 23 before going in-off; Gavin Sloan made a near-faultless break of 54, played safe, then cleared the last three reds with 41 to leave the tie poised with only seven points separating the teams at 297-290 to Stour B.

In the first leg of the Worcester Inter-League over 40s final, Stourbridge beat Evesham 3-2.

Pete Gibbons with visits of 16, 23.23 and 20 against Joe Cockerton, gave Stourbridge a fine start in this first leg at the Old Edwardian Club. However, Evesham levelled the tie when Carl Saidler recovered from 26 behind against Mark Sheehan with a break of 30 followed by most of the colours.

David Oakes quickly established a lead and a break of 36 sealed the win whilst Mark Colbourne was always in control, winning comfortably to make it 3-1.

An early 35 break put Kev Franklin in control of the final frame but Dean Powell replied with 20 and took advantage of his opponents in-off green to clear to the pink before taking the black to leave the tie finely balanced.

First Division Singles Final: Chris Jevons of Kingswinford Cons capped a very good season when after sharing most wins in the division he defeated Mark Jeffries of Amblecote RBL 3-1 at Baggeridge Social Club.

Mark, a five-time winner of this cup, deserves credit for competing in spite of a painful back condition.

Second Division Singles Final: On the adjacent table at Baggeridge, Simon Tyler of Stoutbridge Institute won the Derek Flavell Memorial Shield with a 3-0 victory against Sam Smith of Kingswinford Cons. Simon, who won 12 of his 13 league games, has competed consistently well in this event and has finally secured the main prize, while Sam deserves credit for reaching the final after a successful return to league snooker.