Ashley Nethercliffe defeated Alfie Smith of Portsmouth Water 21-15 to win this year’s county outdoor junior singles title in bowling.

Ashley has been county indoor junior singles champion on four occasions, but the outdoor title always eluded him. However, he won it this time to ensure Oakley land both Hampshire junior singles titles, with Alice Lovett having won the women's equivalent earlier in the season.

Also celebrating a Hampshire title are Basingstoke Town’s Matt Carr, Trevor Morgan and Richard Burgin who lifted the triples title, defeating Milton Park from Portsmouth 21-7.

READ MORE: Basingstoke's Matt Carr reaches final 

Town and Oakley had contrasting fortunes in the County team events.  

In the area final of the men’s championship, Town produced a fine performance against hot favourites Cove, the perennial area champions, but went down to defeat by the narrowest of margins.  

In the mixed event, Oakley also found themselves against Cove and despite a good men’s singles win by Ashley Nethercliffe, it looked for much of the match as if reigning champions, Cove, would have a comfortable victory.  

Oakley, however dug deep and with Alice Lovett in the ladies singles and the triples, skipped by Nick Hardy, pulling back, from the brink of defeat, to win three points that took them through to the County semi-final.

In the Basingstoke and District Men’s league, unbeaten leaders Kingsclere lost top spot as they went down 4-0 at Oakley.  The title now looks set to go to Kingsclere, Alton Social or Oakley.

In the Whitchurch Mixed Triples League, Littleton Leopards need just four points from their remaining two matches to clinch the Division 1 title.  

Divisions 2 and 3 have been dominated by Howard Park with the Merlins guaranteed promotion from Division 2 and replacing Basingstoke Town Jesters and the Kestrels also guaranteed promotion from Division 3.  Old Basing Royalists are confirmed as champions of Division 4.

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The Whitchurch League individual finals were played at Oakley in extremely hot conditions with the eight titles being well shared around the Clubs.  Two titles went to Howard Park with James Durrant winning the Open Singles and Derek Banks and Dave Simmons the Aussie Pairs.  Old Basing also had two winners - Roger Banister in the Over 60s and Dean Waugh and Martin Cullis in the Open Pairs.  

The Mixed Pairs went to Tracy Thomas and David Morris of Basingstoke Town, the Brookhouse Cup to Andy Carnegie of Andover, the Novice Singles to Uwe Brown of Kingsclere and the Triples to St Mary Bourne.