MARK Shepherd’s all-round efforts were not enough as Pickering fell to defeat at Acomb in the Hunters York & District Senior League.

Craig Aconley made 61 and Shepherd 26 before Pickering were dismissed for 150 in the 48th over of their innings.

Teenage paceman Andy Green claimed 3-43 for Acomb while skipper Andy Tute boosted his bowling average with 3-6 on the day before leading the League XI in their Nixon Trophy game against Halifax League at Ripon.

Matt Dickinson then led Acomb’s reply with 66 while Leon Sacks made 26 before Green hit an unbeaten 31 to see his side home by four wickets. Shepherd took 3-35 for the losers.

Stamford Bridge came away from champions Woodhouse Grange with 11 points from a losing draw.

Pete Aconley starred with the ball with 6-41 to restrict Grange to 130, Lloyd Devlin hitting 39 and Andrew Bilton 30.

But Bridge could only muster 115-8 in reply, skipper Matt Beckett top-scoring with 39. Joel Hughes claimed 3-43 while Mike Burdett took four catches.

Sessay became the fifth side to top the premier division in the seven weeks of the season as the title chasing roundabout took another turn.

Only seven points separates Sessay, who had an advantage home draw against Beverley Town, from fourth-placed Easingwold, who started the day as leaders but crashed spectacularly to 11th-placed Hornsea, whose 315-5 was the 11th highest total recorded in the 12-year history of the premier division.

Folkton & Flixton could not stop the Studley Royal bandwagon in division one.

The leaders made the long journey to Folkton and won by 123 runs. Charlie Scatchard made 67, Anthony Mackle 64 and Rob Nicholson 62 as the Royals reached an impressive 271-9, despite Neil Elvidge’s 4-35.

Elvidge followed with a knock of 45 and other home runs came from the bats of Mark Clark (32) and Damon Gormley (30), but Matt Coad took 4-27 as Flixton were rolled over for 148 to hand Studley their sixth win in seven games.

Sheriff Hutton Bridge’s Paul Scaling continued his fine form with 114 as his side went well beyond the 200 mark for the fourth successive week.

Roger Burnham had 4-50 for hosting Hull Zingari but was unable to prevent SHB reaching 261-8.

Ex-Driffield bowler Jamie Hopper then recorded his best figures since joining the Bridge at the start of the season and his 6-59 was a major factor in gaining nine Zingari wickets with eight overs left. Home batsmen Andy Hamson (29), Nick Biggs (26) and Martin Russell (26no) had shown fight before the last Hull pair dug in with success to gain a draw at 172-9.

Malton & Old Malton are still searching for their first win of the season but can draw comfort from gaining the better of a draw against promotion-fancying Bridlington.

Chris Smith (68) and Ben Gill (37) helped Malton make an all-out total of 195 with home bowlers Casey Rudd (4-31) and Steve Winterbottom (3-71) having success.

For Bridlington, Richard Lount made 38 and Ian Winterbottom 27 but Mark Yates helped to keep their reply down to 150-8 with a return of 3-24.