Week eight of the West Cumbria Snooker League summer campaign was a quiet one with just three matches completed, albeit from all areas of the summer schedule.

In the top flight, fifth-placed Kevin Kirkham, of Flimby, was looking to notch his first league victory of the season against fourth-placed Mark Tunstall of Workington.

In an expected closely-fought contest, Kirkham took the opening frame, only for Tunstall to immediately bounce back in similar fashion to tie the match. In the third, despite a season’s best break of 37 from Kirkham, Tunstall edged into the lead. He took the all-important black for a 2-1 lead.

Tunstall maintained the pressure with a 30-break in the fourth but Kirkham was able to dig deep to eke out an equaliser, again on the final ball to pinch the frame by a single point.

In the decider, Kirkham built up a comfortable margin to eventually claim his first win of the season 3-2. Kirkham remains fifth by a single point, but has closed the gap on his immediate two rivals, while Tunstall moves up a place to third.

In the second tier, Seaton’s Paul Smith extended his lead to seven points thanks to a solid 5-0 victory over Workington’s Brian Kendall, just back from injury.

Despite the top versus bottom battle, the opening frame went all the way to the black, Smith just holding the edge. From this point onward, it was one-way traffic despite some resistance from Kendall in the final frame. Kendall remains in sixth.

In an early completion to the Group B round-robin tie of the Gray’s Luxury Ice Cream Trophy, Seaton’s Kevin Basnett secured his place in the semi-finals as he recorded 91-9, 100-17 and 81-35 frame wins over Cockermouth’s Andrew Mitchelhill.

Basnett amassed breaks of 44, 44, 40, 31 and 31 on his way to the next round.

Meanwhile, Mitchelhill must rely on 3-0 scorelines in the remaining group ties and hope that he can better their average frame scores.