Stillingfleet thrive in damp conditions to notch HPH York Vale League win (From York Press)

Stillingfleet thrive in damp conditions to notch HPH York Vale League win

1:42pm Thursday 12th July 2012 in Sport By Martin Jarred

STILLINGFLEET made light of the poor weather to put a dampener on South Cave & Brantingham’s HPH York Vale Cricket League promotion prospects.

Their division three game in East Yorkshire was the only match on Saturday to survive the previous day’s downpours.

Victory would have strengthened Cave’s promotion hopes but they were stunned when their first three wickets fell without a run on the board. Two of the victims were claimed by Phil Johnson (4-47) with Rob Bielby (3-47) getting the other.

Richard O’Sullivan (48) and skipper Ben Scorah (32) rebuilt the innings, but with the tail falling to Chris Woodfine (3-18), Cave were bowled out for 113.

Stillingfleet looked in trouble at 60-6 but were taken to a three-wicket win by Ian Thompson’s unbeaten 31 and a contribution of 32 extras. Jonathan Davies took 4-36 for Cave.

The following day, York bagged 30 points from a 33-run win at Welton & Brough thanks to a fine all-round display by Charlie Elliot. He stroked an impressive 58 in difficult conditions as the visitors totalled 116-8. Liam Rose (3-12) and Matty Glew (3-23) were the pick of Welton’s seven-man bowling attack.

Although they only had a small total to defend, Tom Spearman (4-29) and Elliot’s haul of 4-3-1-2 earned the Clifton Parkers victory.

Conditions had eased by Sunday and Scott Clapham made the most of it by scoring 112 in Bishopthorpe II’s six-wicket victory at Acomb.

Acomb made a respectable 176-5 thanks to Farath Ansar (49) and an unbeaten 40 from Sam Coulson, who has just finished his drama studies at RADA. However, they were upstaged by Clapham, who already has a first-team century to his name this season.

In division five, Hemingbrough II gained their first win of the season at the expense of hosts Dunnington.

The home side were bowled out for 75 with acting skipper Rob Ellis taking 4-14 and 16-year-old Tom Wass returning his best figures of 2-31.

New signing Leo Howard then led Hemingbrough to a five-wicket victory with an unbeaten 30 despite the best efforts of S Gray, who took 4-22.

Spare a thought for division five side Yapham who have yet to complete a league game this season.

Their players finally got to don their whites against Thorp Arch & Boston Spa where they crawled to 84-9 in 40 overs in between a heavy Saturday downpour, Chris Kitson finishing with 3-17.

The TABS reply had reached 36-1, Stuart Wainwright taking the only wicket to fall, when rain drove the players off for good, leaving Yapham still to finish a full league game this year.

The sodden summer weather has put the Vale League’s various cup competitions well behind schedule although Burn II did manage to progress in the President’s Cup on Sunday by beating Ovington by 36 runs.

Ovington duo Ben Busby and Ben Svenson took three wickets apiece but Burn were able to make 125 thanks to Norman Elliott’s 37. Danny Montgomery then wrecked the Ovington batting with 6-1-12-5, supported by Daz Miller’s 3-20.

Teams with outstanding cup games to play are urged to get them on as soon as possible to help clear the backlog of cup fixtures.

Due to there being so few games played last weekend there is no The Press Performance of the Week award.