Oxford beat the Cambridge team by a score of 27-5.
The contest occurred on February 28th at Riley’s Pool and Snooker Club in Cowley. The match involved 32 frames in total, with each team member playing four frames of the total.
The captain of the Oxford team, Paul Allen (St Catherine’s), led by example, winning all four of his frames, and scored the highest break of the match with a 31.
Team members Sam Bunt (St Hugh’s) and Gavin Cheung (Linacre) also won all four of their frames, while Sam Bentham (Christ Church), Abrar Chaudhury (Green Temple- ton), Xiaochun Meng (Merton), Alex Pappas (Christ Church), and Chris Speller (Mansfield) each won three of the four frames in which they played.
The match began with some tight frames, but with a series of one-sided wins by Sam Bunt, Alex Pappas, and Gavin Cheung, Oxford raced to a swift 7-1 lead, from which Cam- bridge was not able to recover.
Team captain Paul Allen told Cherwell, “Oxford’s man of the match has to be awarded to our reserve player Gavin Cheung, who, after a late drop out, only discovered he was playing two hours before the match. Gavin played exceptionally well, winning all four of his [frames] and compiling a personal best competitive break of 16.”
He added, “On the day, Oxford were too experienced for the newly formed Cambridge team but, with only four returning players, next year could be far more competitive.”
This was the first varsity men’s snooker match with Cambridge since 2003, when Oxford won narrowly by a score of 17-15.
