YMGCR BOWLS CLUB
In the Grand Final of Weekend Pennant our fantastic A1’s played Wodonga and it turned out to be the game of the year and a fitting G/F. It all came down to the last bowl, but it was not meant to be, and we went down 72/73. Wodonga jumped out of the blocks early and raced to a 18/1 lead, but we started to crawl our way back and took a handy lead, only to have Wodonga come back and take it to the wire.
Jimmy Lefevre’s rink of Garry Sanders, Andy Lefevre and Rod Jones started slowly and trailed 1/7 after 7 ends. Once they got the mat and went short, the tide turned, and they peeled off 6 ends in a row and led 15/7 after 13 ends. They went on to win 20/13. Les Spencer’s rink lost the first 3 ends but then they pulled their finger out and won 7 ends in a row to lead 14/4 after 10 ends. The Wodonga rink then came back to win 3 ends on the trot (all multiples) which closed the gap right up again, but the YMGCR rink hung on to a 20/18 victory. Scott Widdison’s rink was 7/8 down after 10 ends. The Wodonga skip was playing great bowls and repeatedly converted when Scott held good shots and Wodonga went on to win 12/22. Troy Williams rink also got off to a bad start and trailed 5/0 after 2 ends. From that time on the YMGCR rink started to lift and after 10 ends led 11/9. After that they only dropped another 4 ends, but the difference was the Wodonga skip who played some ripping bowls to get a 4 and a 5. In contrast Troy and his 3rd Julian Jones played great bowls but only got the minimum scores.
On the 84th end Wodonga led 73/70. Julian Jones moved the jack back for YMGCR to hold 2 shots. Troy and his Wodonga counterpart both put their first bowls down with no change. Troy played his last bowl and it just failed to get around Claire Sanders bowl, and just fell out (if it had hit it in the right spot we could have been in a playoff).
The club would like to congratulate not only our fantastic team but also our club mates who came to Corowa to support our team (around 50 supporters). Also, thanks to the Bowls Committee for putting on refreshments back at the club, and the Golf Club for the food.
Midweek A1’s cruised into next week’s Grand Final, but not after an early scare. Next week they will come face to face with our arch enemy ……Wangaratta !!!!! This game will be a titanic battle. YMGCR beat them on their own green in the last game of the normal season, and Wang got over the line in the Qualifying Final by a miserable shot.
Playing the Preliminary Final at Chiltern against a very formidable side in Kiewa, YMGCR got the victory winning 12/68 to 2/58. The rink of Anne Miles, Claire sanders, Micky Vaughan and Rhonda Irvine hit their straps early and after winning 10 ends in a row raced out to a 23/3 lead. They teamed beautifully and always had the opposition skip under a lot of pressure, and after 19 ends led 34/6. They won 34/16….yes 34/16 (10 shots in the last 2 ends). Just goes to show, you have to be switched on for the whole game. Laureen Smith’s rink had one of the worst starts possible when they dropped a 5 on the first end, and after 3 ends trailed 0/7. They then settled down and began to show their quality and determination when they chipped away to trail 14/15 after 16 ends. The front end of Sue Middleton and Shirley Hummel had started to take control over the Kiewa players and big Les Spencer played some big bombs and they won 19/16. Julian Jones rink got off to a slow start and trailed 2/8 after 4 ends. Winning the next 3 ends they were back in the game, but then with the Kiewa skip playing some great bowls, Kiewa won the next 5 ends to stretch the lead out to 19/6 after 12 ends. With Anne’s rink having a good lead and covering them, they won the second half of the game and lost 15/26.
On Sunday we had the Semi Finals of the O&M Mixed Pairs, and we were represented by Vicki Withers and Micky Vaughan. Boy did they do us proud, as they took the eventual winners to an extra end, and then just lost the playoff by the narrowest of margins. They came through the hardest section and played some very big teams….well done!!!
Social bowls this week saw our monthly “Dash for Cash” day and we had 16 players. The winners were Chris Horne and Danny McNeill and the runners up were the Lidgerwood brothers, Rob and Peter.
Last week 2 of our fantastic A1 players did wrong biases. I wonder who they could be??