Playing Ditch Weight

The Zone 8 Pairs Championships were played at the club over the weekend with 21 games being completed.

With one of the morning games finishing later than expected on Saturday the final few ends of the afternoon games were played under lights in very cold conditions.

There were several changes in conditions on Sunday but they were quite good for the majority of the day.

As was the case with the Singles games last week, one of the features of play at this level was the ability of players to play a shot that changed the head in their favour.

In the Sectional games each team played two games and a number of these games needed an extra end to decide the winner. The majority of games had a margin of less than 5 shots.

In Section 1 of the State division Duane Crow and Andrew Hirst (North Albury) won their sectional games 26–11 and 26–10 to qualify for the final. Arty Stacey and Bruce Lack (Temora) were the Section 2 winners with scores of 27–16 and 18–17.

The final saw Duane and Andrew in front for most of the game and with 4 ends left to play they led 15–10.

Arty and Bruce scored 9 shots on the next 3 ends to lead by 4 shots going into the last end. Duane and Andrew scored 3 shots on the final end so that Arty and Bruce had a 19–18 win.

In the Seniors division John Humphries and Graeme Rossitter (Tumut) had two clear–cut wins to ensure that they played in the final while Noel O’Brien and Ross Maguire (Wagga Rules) had a loss by 2 shots and a win by 4 shots and survived a countback to qualify.

The final saw some very good bowls played by both teams but the scoring favoured Noel and Ross and they won 21–4.

For the President’s Reserve division Andrew Wilson and Jason Jones (Cootamundra Ex–Services) won their two sectional games to progress to the final.

In the other section Rick Crofts and Les Pilfoot (Howlong) had a narrow win and a loss on an extra end and a two–stage countback was needed to confirm their position in the final.

The final was a close contest from start to finish and could have gone either way on the last end. Despite dropping 1 shot on that end Rick and Les were the winners 18–16.

All the winners will contest the State Finals of their division at Ettalong toward the end of August.

For local bowlers there was no play on Thursday due to the wet conditions.

Sixteen players were involved in Jackpot Bowls on Saturday afternoon.

Albert Carter and Ian Schofield won their game by 12 shots to claim the vouchers.

The other winning teams and their margins were Chris Wright and Les Fanning (8 shots), Andrew Hutchison and Colin Powell (7 shots) and Aldo Malvicino and Alan Gall (2 shots).

This weekend will see Saturday Jackpot Bowls as usual and there will be nominated Open Bowls played on Sunday afternoon. The entries for Sunday close at 12.30 pm with play to start at 1.00 pm.

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