Unicorn teams seem likely to battle it out with each other for Division One title

LOUGHBOROUGH teams are likely to fill the top two places in the Leicester Table Tennis League as the season approaches its finishing straight.

University-based Unicorn I and Unicorn II are separated by just a single point at the summit of Division One with six matches still to play.

The only team still capable of preventing a Loughborough whitewash are Leicester’s Knighton Park I who are in third spot only three points adrift of Unicorn II.

The leaders have seen four regular players, Lois Peake (100 per cent), Jared Patel (90), Garry Knights (73) and Tim Sheppard (73) produce the goods all season.

But their seemingly inevitable run towards the title received a severe jolt when they were crushed 9-1 a few weeks ago in their derby clash with Unicorn II. Craig Witheford (90 per cent), Luke Greenfield (83) and Yuyu Gong (77) were in fine form to keep Unicorn II in the hunt.

There’s another local side in the top four with Thringstone also performing consistently. Their success this season has been aided by the signing of David Arrowsmith (83) alongside Trevor Kerry (70) and Maurice Newman (53).

Unicorn have two other teams who are performing well in a competitive Division Three.

The sides split between students and others before the start of the campaign with the university team of Unicorn III leading the way just a point outside the top four.

Jacob Sharp was been their leading player winning 87 per cent of his sets. He has been given good support by Justin Ho (69), Xi-Luang Huang (50) and Jordan Tweed (46).

Unicorn IV, who consist of more experienced players, have produced a good run of form since Christmas to steer themselves well clear of the relegation zone. They are now in sixth spot out of 12 sides with half-a-dozen matches yet to play.

Ron Forster (71 per cent) has been the team’s most successful individual, followed by John Brindley (50) and Guan Mei Zhang (42). Both Eric Baker and David Green have contributed a couple of wins to enable Unicorn IV to take maximum points from their last two fixtures.