Gisborne-East Coast bowlers reach for their inner gunslinger at Te Karaka

The Poverty Bay Bowling Club team who won the Peck Shield Junior Interclub tournanent (from left): Win Baker, Jack Clark, skip Anna Colvin, BJ Seymour and Carmelle McKenzie.

Lawn bowlers called on their inner gunslinger in a slew of shootout finishes at Te Karaka Bowling Club last weekend.

Poverty Bay Bowling Club’s Team 1 beat Te Karaka in the final of the Peck Shield Junior Interclub.

In each match, teams played a two-set triples game and a two-set pairs game.

One-end tiebreakers were used if teams won a set each in a game.

If the teams won a game each, a five-person, one-bowl shootout decided the winner ... nearest bowl wins.

A shootout was needed to decide both semi-finals and the final.

The final could hardly have been closer.

Both sides had claimed a discipline each on tie-breakers. On to the match-deciding shootout ...

Poverty Bay skip Anna Colvin had her team’s final shot. They were two shots up. She could cover the back or try to make it three shots to ramp up the pressure on Te Karaka skip Greg Flett.

She chose the latter option, making it three shots in the process.

With the final bowl of the match, Flett aimed to connect with one of the three holding bowls, but his effort failed to change the ownership of the closest bowl, and Poverty Bay triumphed.

Poverty Bay were Colvin (skip), Win Baker, Jack Clark, BJ Seymour and Carmelle McKenzie.

Te Karaka were Flett (s), Marty Hayes, Erica Thompson, Lyn Hayes and Jacque Broughton.

Players had to play at least one round of each discipline.

It was McKenzie’s first tournament for the Poverty Bay club. She settled well and delivered some handy bowls in both the semi-final and final.

Te Karaka staged an upset in the semi-finals, beating a Kahutia team featuring Pinn family members and promising youngster Malachi Gray.

Flett played the decisive bowl in the shootout. With his team down on the head, Flett drove. In the mayhem, the jack struck the bank and ricocheted back onto a Te Karaka bowl, and the match was won.

In the other semi-final, Poverty Bay beat Gisborne in the shootout.

Poverty Bay’s Clark had a bumper weekend. On the Saturday, he had been the junior half of the winning pair in a junior/senior pairs tournament at Te Karaka.

Clark, who enjoys a flutter on the horses, thought he’d won the lottery when he got to play alongside clubmate Anita Vaotuua, who had won the centre women’s open singles the weekend before. She duly put in another fine performance, and Clark was happy to be along for the ride.

This weekend the centre men’s open singles will be played at the Gisborne Bowling Club greens, while the centre women’s open triples will be played at the Poverty Bay greens. The number of entries in the men’s singles prompted the venue for the women’s event to be changed from Gisborne to Poverty Bay.