LAST Sunday saw yet another great turn out for the last of this year’s competitions at the Wolversdene Club, the Ali Macdonald Open Singles.

The Academy players showed much desire for the game with Shane Reidy taking Mark Thorne to a deciding leg thriller but Thorne showed his experience in the end after hitting three 180s and winning the match 4-3.

More Academy stars showed their skills as Harriet Raynsford met up with Dan Read in the first round who showed his talent with a 4-2 win after Hatty took out a 112 to make it 3-2 .

Both Read and Thorne fell in the quarter-finals to Berkshire’s Paul Hogan 4-1 and Swindon’s Chris Aubrey 4-3 respectively. Thorne missed doubles to beat Aubrey 4-1 and 4-3 and said after: “If you don’t hit you doubles you don’t deserve to win.”

In the other quarter-finals Swindon’s Richie North lost to Swindon’s Lee Evans as did Basingstoke’s Kevan Merritt against Swindon’s Johnny Haines.

The semi-finals saw a great match between Hogan and Swindon’s Johnny Haines who was in a commanding lead at 4-3 and thought the match was still best of seven but both semi-finals and final were the best of nine legs and Hogan bit back to claim the match 5-4 .

In the other semi-final Evans came out a convincing winner by beating Aubrey 5-2 .

The final between Hogan and Evans was pure class but unfortunately Hogan missed doubles in the first two legs and Evans took full advantage to go into a commanding lead at 3-1. Hogan pulled one back before Evans hit 58, 180, 180 , then 57 and double 12 with 11 darts with Evans claiming the match 5-2 after Hogan missed so many doubles to win the Ali Macdonald Trophy and £400 for his efforts.