Yorkshire Ladies tread different path against Cumbria to reach familiar winning score

Lindrick's Nicola Slater was in devastating form for Yorkshire Ladies as they defeated Cumbria 6-3 at Seaton Carew (Picture: Chris Stratford).

YORKSHIRE Ladies scored a second consecutive 6-3 victory in the Northern Counties Match Week event at Seaton Carew, although the match with Cumbria panned out differently to the win over Northumberland.

While captain Heather Muir's team had needed to overturn a two-point deficit from the foursomes on day one, this time the defending champions headed into the afternoon singles 2-1 up.

Yorkshire's top foursomes pairing of Hannah Holden (Lightcliffe) and Nicola Slater (Lindrick) won emphatically 6&5 and their example was followed by middle duo Melissa Wood (Woodsome Hall) and Mia Eales Smith (Lindrick). They closed out their match after 14 holes.

The 'Green Army' augmented their advantage with four wins out of six in the singles.

English match play champion Slater was sent out in the anchor match and stormed to a 7&6 triumph.

Wood won 5&4, Eales Smith 3&1 and Woodsome Hall's Lily Hirst 2&1.

On Wednesday Yorkshire face Durham on the middle day of the championship, which starts with them joint leaders with Lancashire, who yesterday beat Durham 5-4 while Northumberland were beating Cheshire by the same score.