WESTLECOT Men continued their fine run of form last Sunday in the new Thames region of the Wessex Indoor League by defeating West Berkshire (Newbury) 78-69.

After the club’s delayed start to their Wessex League campaign this season owing to fixture clashes with the Egham Trophy and Top Club national team competitions, Westlecot have notched a hat-trick of wins on successive Sundays in January.

These victories have seen the Old Town club leap off the foot of the seven-team table into third spot.

Even better, the club still has games in hand and are now hot favourites to finish in the top two and reach the play-offs and last 16 at the end of February for the overall Wessex League title.

This latest 78-69 success was definitely their hardest to date following big wins over Rivermead (110-45) and Swindon Manor (121-48) the previous weekends.

Westlecot only won by nine shots overall against West Berks but took the honours on two rinks, drew on another and only lost on one to take 13 of the 16 points that were on offer.

Top rink honours went to the home foursome of Dave Snell, Huw Dawson, Andy McIntyre and skip Mike Titcombe, who led throughout their match and won by 11 shots in a 24-13 success.

Elsewhere, Dave Godwin’s quartet saw their 19-14 lead at 19 ends wiped out as they dropped counts of two and three on the last two ends to only draw 19-19.

Next best in the top rink stakes were the away foursome of Paul Kistle, Ollie Moody, Terry Walton and skip Chris Cheesley - who were only 9-8 up at 15 ends but extended that slim advantage to 15-11 at 21 ends.

The two rink successes that totalled 15 shots easily wiped out the six shots loss in a 20-26 defeat sustained by Kyle Anderson’s quartet.

Overall scores were pretty tight throughout with Westlecot leading 56-46 at 15 and 69-57 at 18 before finally clinching a hard fought 78-69 victory and earning another 13 points.

Oxford City & County head the Thames region table with 56 points from four games with West Berks one point behind but from five games – these two sides have met already though and drew 83-83 and shared the spoils eight points each.

Westlecot are handily placed and ready to pounce in third on 44 points but from only three unbeaten games.