Today saw the third and final selection of counties go head to head in the last of the three group stage elimination brackets. As with the previous group, a good turnout saw only two counties unable to field a full team, providing a well fought group and a number of interesting games.
The Greater Manchester side, led by Joe “Joeee” Leigh of fish123 fame, took a direct place in the second round after being the top seed for the group. They were set to go head to head with team Norfolk, who missed the first round due to an absent Wiltshire side. Despite being a best of three series, it did not take long for the Mancunian men to put in the work and come out with a clean victory. A swift 2 – 0 series sees Greater Manchester heading comfortably in to the top twelve.
Further down the elimination bracket the Bedfordshire side found themselves against West Yorkshire in the second round of matches, with each team defeating Durham and Derbyshire respectively with heavily one sided scorelines. Despite the success of round one, Bedfordshire appeared to be too tough a task to ask of the Yorkshiremen, who lost out without taking a single map in the series, seeing Joe “JT” Talbot into the finals bracket.
The bronzed men of Essex were next to participate in a round two game after taking a default win in the first. Their opponents came in the form of Staffordshire, who advanced from the first round after a close series with the West Midlands. Although the game was opted to me streamed for the potential for it to be a nail biter, Essex were keen to show that they were the dominant force, and delivered two crushing scorelines on de_inferno and de_mirage.
Finally, after a rather close match on cache against Nottinghamshire by Cornwall, and an equally close game between Cheshire and Somerset, Cornwall and Cheshire clashed for the final qualifying spot. The first map, de_dust2, went the way of Cornwall in a relatively one-sided fashion, leaving a bitter taste in the mouths of the Cheshire crew. They entered into the second map with a much stronger composure, taking a convincing lead on the first half of de_mirage. However, they were unable to grasp the five rounds required to secure themselves a third map, allowing Cornwall to round up the list for finals participants.
The qualified Counties from Group C are:
Greater Manchester
Bedfordshire
Essex
Cornwall
