PARK District A got their season up and running with a 26-11 victory over Budmouth B.

With six games, Tom Cherry was Budmouth’s top scorer in beating both Geoff Ware, Weymouth coach Matt’s father, and Luke Hunt.

Park’s Ray Cody dropped only one leg in securing a maximum.

Title contenders Budmouth A got off the mark with an emphatic 30-13 win over Portland’s Red Triangle, however, it took them a while to get going before they claimed their victory.

Moses Lewis, Will Jolliffe and Nathan Calton all had to grind out narrow 3-2 wins over Shaun Beauchamp, Derrick Dawson and Mike Spracklen respectively in a great set of opening matches for the night.

Lewis also needed five sets to beat Spracklen in an epic with the first two sets being shared 17-15 and 14-16.

Current champions, Springfield A, got off to a good start as they defeated Colliton X 27-3.

Jeff Rigby failed to drop a leg for the victors, whilst Andy Crouch picked up Colliton’s only win of the night, a great 3-0 win over Andy Pipe.

A cracking evening of table tennis saw Peter Stopforth and Jess Moggeridge playing up from Division Two for Preston B and YMCA respectively.

All but three of the sets went to five games in a 26-20 win for YMCA.

However, the star of the evening was junior Moggeridge who showed experience beyond her young age by taking a maximum nine games for the visitors.

Springfield B top Division Two early on after they beat Wyke A 27-15. Five of the first seven matches went the distance with comebacks the order of the night.

In taking nine games, Paul Arnold came from two sets down twice for Springfield with Gary Ayles, winner of six, suffering the reverse fate against Wyke’s Stuart and Roger Walden before losing by the same score to Ian South.

Preston A made amends for their heavy defeat to Springfield B last week with a 27-11 home win against Colliton C, though it was not enough to take them above their Dorchester rivals.

Thierry Roy, with nine games, top-scored on the night for the victors with Katherine Bundy and Andy Ray, winners of three and six games respectively, picking up a victories over Derrick Shilliday and Eddie Chapman for Colliton.

In Division Three, Wey Valley made it two wins on the spin as they demonstrated their strength against Wyke C in a 30-5 success.

Tracey Storey was Wyke’s top contributor with three points, two of those in a very close 3-2 defeat to Joe Bingham.

Springfield D scored a closely fought 22-15 win over Preston E.

The first two matches were epic encounters.

Preston’s Paul Hammond took seven games and Springfield’s Pete Anderson, winner of nine, snatching final-set victories against David Moth and Malcolm Smith respectively, the latter scoring eight and five.

The doubles made the win seem slightly more emphatic than at one stage looked likely.

Budmouth D’s Liam Critchard was too strong for Wyke B although he was pushed in the first leg coming back from 10-7 down against Rod Wyness, winner of six, who went on to triumph in his other two matches.

Sam Melhuish and Ted Paul contributed six and five points respectively to enable Budmouth to run out 20-15 winners.

Sophie Storey scored a maximum in Budmouth E’s 23-15 win over Preston D, which included an entertaining 3-2 victory over Dave Clegg, who scored eight.

Ashleigh Browne and Holly Calton, who scored six and seven respectively, also played well against the experienced Preston team which included Christine Roy and Liz Wilkinson, the duo both notching two points.