WEST Devon A suffered their third defeat of the season in the Tavistock Snooker League at the hands of ‘table toppers’ Conservative B in a keenly fought encounter.

Lillicrap for Con B inflicted yet another black ball defeat on Taylor to take his side one up. A superb performance of silk like quality snooker from Con B’s Monk took out West Devon’s danger man Heathman to give his side a two frame lead.

It was so nearly three with Con B’s Moloney almost achieving the unthinkable by taking out the unbeaten Kevin Rich, but it was not to be as Rich belatedly composed himself to win on the black ball.

Morris (24) recaptured some of the form to despatch Ewings (3) by a massive margin, including a 24 break, to pull West Devon A level and set up a deciding final frame. Two players struggling for form, Evans for the Con B and Lawrence for West Devon A, set out in this pressure match to secure it for their respective teams.

Neither player seemed able to pull away from the other until some late solid shots from Evans made all the difference as he slowly crossed the line to win the game for Conservative B, enabling them to retain their top of the table spot.

Still unable to field their strongest side Conservative A were happy to continue their unbeaten start to the season with a hard grafted victory at West Devon B.

West Devon drew first blood with Hart continuing his recent good form with a thumping win over struggling Bell.

Hoare for the West Devon B struggled to make any headway against Con A’s ‘stand in’ Folley. As the game progressed Folley gained in confidence and took most of the colours to pinch the frame on the pink.

Despite holding Babb at bay for the first half of the frame, Gilchrist for the West Devon B had no answer to a late surge of good cueing from Babb which secured the frame comfortably for Con A.

Lacey looked to all intents and purposes to be in the driving seat against West Devon B’s Roger Rich, until he smashed in a flurry of colours to steal the frame on the black.

In the final deciding frame Con A’s Carruthers found himself in the uncustomary position of being 30 behind to some solid snooker from Horrell. Just in time Carruthers clicked into gear with 23 and 25 breaks to take control and wrest the match from West Devon’s hands.