Oxfordshire's Men’s A team rescued a draw from their Inter-Counties Cha-mpionship clash against Hampshire.
Trailing 13-11 going into the final round of matches, wins from Dennis Smith, Preben Krabben, Roger Haines, Ade Larner, Kit Young, Les Radford and Pete Hall secured a 7-5 success, and an 18-18 draw overall.
Incredibly, it is Oxon’s third draw in four matches this season.
They got off to a good start on the first of the two days, drawing 3-3 in the Ladies’ B match, with wins from lady-of-the-match Louise Carroll (average 19.64), Julie Newman and Cath Birch, before taking the Men’s B game 7-5.
Steve Foster (26.33), Jon Jukes, Barry Stratford, John Fowler, Graham Manning, Simon Tricker and Paul Farnes all triumphed as Oxon edged into a 10-8 lead.
However, the Ladies A were no match for a strong Hampshire outfit on the second day, crashing to a 5-1 defeat with Rachael Dixon (18.90) claiming the sole point.
And that meant the Men’s A needed to pull out all the stops to avoid defeat, and they did, with Smith and Krabben sharing the top-dog honour with averages of 28.36.
Smith is a leading PDC player who reached the last eight of this year’s World Matchplay.
The result was enough to move Oxon up one place in the table to sixth.
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