After the excitement of last week’s title chases, there were just two matches to report on this week before the Easter break, with our D team at home to Alsager B in division 4 and our F team hosting Cheddleton G in division 5.
Both of our teams’ captains opted to drop themselves to give match opportunity to other members. The D team held out for a 2-2 draw in an exciting match. 16 year old Lukasz Michalek continued his fine form after success at Newcastle Mini Congress, with a superb mating trick after appearing to drop a central pawn that created discovered attacks to the opposition’s castled king to put us in the lead. James Marshall did well for Alsager to beat another of our younger brigade. Board 1 saw Rick Renegade in typical “all guns blazing style” overcome his opponent to put us in front 2-1 when his own king looked very exposed. And John Smith finished the match with aplomb for Alsager to leave it all square. The D team have now concluded all their matches and currently sit 3rd in the table, although will more than likely end up dropping a couple of places as other teams have games in hand.
The other match saw our F team completely over-ran by the visitors who notched up a 4-0 whitewash. The result does not tell the full story of how close all the games were. We were well outgraded on top three boards and Chedd’s junior Isabelle Rose on board 4 shows great signs of improvement as she beat another of our promising youngsters. Crewe F currently sit in 5th place in the division with an excellent haul of 15 pts from 15 matches and have a chance to finish in the top half if they manage a win in their one remaining match.
Five of our seven league teams have now finished their campaigns, with just the E & F teams to complete their fixtures. Next week, the E team have a crucial match at Stafford B, while the F team entertain Meir B, and the E team’s final match is at home to Cheddleton H on 8th May. Before that we have a full house at The Mals with 3 Cup Finals on Wednesday 1st May.