Crymych Panthers’ Boccia Club held their club championships at the Pembrokeshire Sports Village last Saturday and the games were played in two classification groups - BC 1-4 and BC 5-8 , with lots of exciting finishes enjoyed by players and spectators alike
 
The BC 1-4 players were Rachel Bailey, Finnlay Walters, Ioan Williams and Lewis Crawford and the BC 5-8 were Ben Couceiro, Darren Briggs, David Johns, Sam Hayton, Rhys Folder, Dewi Evans and Elli Davies.
 
 BC 5-8 part of the event was played in the morning in two pools, with Darren Briggs and Dewi Evans winning their pools to reach the final. This was a very tense game with Darren winning 4-1. All the games in this section were  refereed by Liz Jones, Alyson Folder and Lewis Crawford, with a special mention to 11 year old Elli Davies, who has only been at the club for 6 weeks and played remarkably.
 
.BC 1-4 was played in the afternoon with four players who played a round-robin competition. Sian Jones was unable to play as she was recovering from a recent spell in hospital and took over scoring duties on the day, together with Rhiannon Doncaster – and the last game between Rachel Bailey and Lewis Crawford was to be the decider, as Ioan Williams, Rachel and Lewis were all still in with a chance of winning the group.
 
The game ended 3-3, resulting in a tiebreaker, with Lewis coming out on top, and with Ioan Williams as runner up. 
 
Big thanks must go to Tomas Martin from DSW for refereeing and Phil and Debs Martin for their support. Another mention must go to an all-round sports star in 10 year old Finlay Walters (BC2), who like his cousin Elli has only been playing at the club for 6 weeks.
 
It was a great pleasure to have Mike and Polly Thomas at the event as the funding to run the event and the trophies had been received from the Jacob Thomas Annual Memorial Event last September with the trophies named the Jacob Thomas Shields after the former Paralympian who first brought boccia into the limelight in Pembrokeshire.
 
Coach Angela Miles was delighted with the standard of play which demonstrates the hard work and dedication the players show in training sessions. If anyone with a physical impairment is interested in playing Boccia please contact Angela direct via email a.miles456@btinternet.com