Competition (almost) over: no gold, but silver for Dronten

BY HANS DE JONGH

The NGF spring competition is (almost) over. The highest step of the podium was a step too far for the seven teams. Only two teams could dream of it for a short time. There was silver. The team of captain Bas Maatman, as the Men’s 1 team is also known, finished in a nice second place and remains in the second division. The teams that still have to play their final match are the women’s and men’s seniors. They in particular sometimes had double bad luck due to the extreme rainfall. Two consecutive new dates have been set aside for the senior men.

Bas Maatman’s team determinedly dealt with opponent Havelte in the last match, which had no chance against Dronten. With 17-5 in the cut, Dronten chose second place in the ranking after Sint Nyk, which had two more match points left in the competition. Dronten managed to score eight points in the singles against Havelte thanks to Arnoud Fontein, Maarten Uhlenbeck, Bas Maatman and Gerard Bosman. For the Greensomes, Jeroen Schmeits and Arnoud Fontein scored two points, Maarten Uhlenbeck and Chris van den Brand one point and Bas Maatman and Gerard Bosman two points.

The Men’s 2 team from Dronten had to bow their heads to Emmeloord on Sunday. With a final score of 7-15, the leader from the Noordoostpolder wanted to make it clear who was the strongest on the track of De Groene Ster in Leeuwarden. The eventual champion team in this group had a difficult time in the singles against (see photo) Piet Ploeger, Ruud Mutters, Ben Pelt, Allard Berends, Robbert Springer and Chris Sterk, but surprisingly encountered little resistance from Dronten in the Greensomes.

After Robbert Springer, Chris Sterk and Ben Pelt scored a 6-6 score in the singles, only Ben Pelt and Allard Berends scored in the Greensomes (5-1). With double match points for Emmeloord, the score became 15-7, meaning the opponent had collected eight points from all four pool matches played and became a glorious champion. Gaasterland came second with 4 out of 4 matches played and Dronten third with 4 out of 4. Gaasterland had the advantage of winning more games here.

Dronten Heren 2 Reserve ends the competition in fourth after winning 8-10 against Nunspeet in the last match. In the singles there were points for Bas Wierda, Jurgen Mulder, Arjan Flierman and Henk Nieuwenhuizen. In the Foursomes only Bas and Jurgen scored. Men’s 1 did not play against Zwolle on Sunday in Havelte and had to passively watch as all the points disappeared into the opponent’s pockets. It also finished at the bottom of the group after failing to score points in a single match.