National women's team player Linda Partap-Boodhan and Rawle Parsons combined for four wins to lead Arima Hawks past Crusader's B in a top-of-the-table clash when the T&T Table Tennis Association Second Division Inter-Team Championship continued at Arima West Primary School on Monday night.
For Hawks, Wayne Oudit got the opening victory, beating Imtiaz Mohammed 11-7, 16-14, 7-11, 11-13, 13-11 while Parsons made it 2-0 in the best-of-six matches series by getting past Riad Abas Ali in a similar five-set thriller 11-9, 10-12, 3-11, 11-8, 12-10.However, Vinoo Maraj finally got the previously perfect Crusaders B on the board at 2-1 via his 11-5, 11-9, 9-11, 11-9 victory over Hawks' Keron Ali.
But that was as close as Crusaders got as the combination of Parsons and Partap-Boodhan paired to battle past Anil Ramlakhan and Maraj 6-11, 11-3, 11-5, 6-11, 11-6 for a 3-1 advantage before Partap-Boodhan, the national women's singles runner-up, defeated Ramlakhan 15-13, 7-11, 11-9, 11-5 in the reverse singles to seal her team's triumph. The win pushed Hawks' back to the top of the 11-team table with 18 points from seven matches, one more D'Abadie Youths while Crusaders B and Montrose United are next with 16 points, all with a match in hand on the table-toppers.
At the D'Abadie Community Centre, host D'Abadie Youths missed out on going top of the table after battling to a 3-3 draw with University of Trinidad & Tobago (UTT) which got an 11-5, 11-6, 10-12, 11-6 victory from Declan John over Lawrence Ince to earn a share of the points.For D'Abadie, Ince had earlier defeated Carlisle Cleaveland 11-9, 11-7, 11-5 for a 1-0 lead while Davone Joseph and recently transfered eight-time national women's singles champion Aleena Edwards overcame Sherdon Pierre and Edwin Humphreys 5-11, 3-11, 11-8, 11-9, 11-7 and Joseph stopped Pierre 11-7, 11-8, 17-15.
UTT, the former team of Edwards, got its other wins from John, 11-3, 11-4, 11-4 over Saddiq Ramsingh, and Humphreys, 8-11, 11-9, 9-11, 11-6, 11-9 against Edwards.In the lone match played on Tuesday night at PowerGen Sports Club, Flament Street, UTT rebounded to defeat Solo Crusaders "A', 4-1.Meanwhile, expert Joe Fisher of Canada will hold High Level International Table Tennis Federation courses for local umpires and referees from March 26 to 30.
This will be immediately followed by the Caribbean Cadet & Junior Championship from April 3-7.Top Junior and Cadet players Arun Roopnarine, Catherine Spicer, Aaron Wilson and Brittany Joseph will be on show and are this country's main medal hopes. In the meantime, the Division Two League will continue where all national players are being fine-tuned for the Caribbean Championship.