The York women’s darts team played the best match of their lives, but succumbed to an agonising 5-4 defeat at the hands of Lancaster.
Leading 4-2, York needed only one victory from the last three games to secure four points. But Lancaster came roaring back with three straight games to clinch a dramatic victory.
For a university which has struggled to even get a team together in recent years, York can be extremely proud of their performance against one of the best university women’ darts sides in the north of England.
Initially, it was Lancaster who showed their class. Alice Lamb secured a 2-0 victory over York’s Louiza Georgieva who pushed her opponent to her limits in both of the legs.
However, from this point onwards things did not go according to the script. York’s Frances Bennett secured a magnificent equalising game to bring the scores to 1-1.
The first leg was a fairly slow affair but Bennett finally edged her opponent with the double 1. She was pegged back to 1-1 in the second leg, but Bennet soared away in the decider, recording a ton on the way a convincing victory.
York then took the lead in the match for the first time as Samantha Walters beat Lancaster’s Hayley Booth 2-1. In the decider, the final double took an age for both players to hit, but Walters kept her nerve to secure the win.
Lancaster, though, hit back to make it 2-2. York Sport President elect, Charlotte Winter, put up an admirable fight in a sport she rarely plays against Victoria Barrett, but the Lancastrian eventually secured a 2-0 win.
York re-took the lead in the following game as Amanda Barnes and Aimee Hopper traded legs before Barnes turned on the style in the decider, checking out brilliantly from 39 with 19, 10 and double 5.
Isabelle Campbell extended York’s lead to 4-2 overall, with a solid first leg checking out on double 10 before winning the second leg in equally enthralling contest.
Needing just one more win, York’s lead was frustratingly eaten up and eventually overtaken. In game seven, York’s Charlotte Judge was unfortunately beaten by the deadly Joanna Birch of Lancaster to make it 4-3, followed by Anna McGivern being edged by Zarah McCulloch with the scores level at 4-4.
Then came the dramatic deciding game. York’s top player, Laura Dodds, was up against Georgina Mitchell. They exchanged the first two legs but Mitchell hit a ton en route to a tense double sudden death finish which she clinched to the delight of the Lancastrian crowd.
In short, it was a great effort from York and a fantastic advertisement for women’s darts at university level.