Oxfordshire gave themselves a great chance of qualifying for the quarter-finals of the Middleton Cup by beating Bucks at Chesham on Saturday.

They triumphed 121-115 to pick up 18 points and make it two wins in a row following the previous week's victory over Hampshire.

Oxon lead their group with 34 points, while Hampshire have 26, Berkshire 20 and Bucks and Isle of Wight four each.

The crunch game now for Oxfordshire comes this Saturday when they travel to play Berkshire at Suttons BC. Oxon led 37-26 after five ends, 60-51 after ten and 90-78 after 15 at Chesham, but over the last six ends, Bucks made inroads into the 12-shot advantage and in the end went down by five shots.

The fact that Oxon hung on to victory was largely due to two superb bowls bowled by Alan Ley.

On the 20th end, Ley's rink were four shots down, but with his last bowl he drew the shot.

On the final end it was a similar scenario, with Ley needing to get shot to avoid losing another four. He did just that by nudging out the shot bowl to lie shot himself. Again, it was a good team performance by Oxon with four of the rinks winning. On this occasion, the losing rinks were skipped by Greg Moon and Howard Watts, both of whom were up against strong opposition.

The rink of Mike Petersen, Stuart Richens, Ryan Buckett and captain Baden Sparkes played a major role with a ten-shot win over Kirk Smith's rink which contained two current internationals.

RESULTS:

Oxon 121 (18 pts), Bucks 115 (4): L Gillett 23, P McGuinness 20; A Ley 21, J McGuinness 17; Geo Moon 16, B Long 22; B Sparkes 25, K Smith 15; G Lucas 20, L Richardson 16; H Watts 16, G Smyth 25.