Indoor bowls news

TROPHY WINNER: Sian Williams with the trophy for the Village Butchery Centre Closing Trios she won with David Lynn and Lois Lamont. Picture by Liam Clayton

Fourteen-year-old Gisborne Girls’ High School student Sian Williams played great bowls all day on her way to winning her first centre title, the Village Butchery Centre Closing Trios.

While having a go at outdoor bowls in 2016, Williams found out that indoor bowls was also an option at Ilminster Intermediate School, under the guidance of Tony Garrett.

She took up the game and within months she placed third in the AIMS Games pairs competition, and Ilminster Intermediate School won the award for best team.

In 2017, Williams reached the last eight in the AIMS Games singles and got hooked on the sport, joining club bowls with the Gisborne Cosmopolitan Club.

Williams likes the people in the sport.

“It gives me a lot of opportunities and I can play in a lot of competitions,” she said.

“It’s a calming game and you don’t need to be a sporty athletic person to play. It’s a quiet game and I like it how you use your smartness to outmanoeuvre your opponents.”

In recent years, experienced indoor bowlers have taken on young players in their teams, and Williams was delighted to get a phone call from prolific centre titleholder David Lynn inviting her to join him and Lois Lamont in a team for the final local competition of 2018.

“Williams was outstanding all day,” Lynn said.

“She’s not phased by anything, and just gets down, listens and plays magnificently for such a young player. Leads (the first player to bowl in a team) win games in triples, and her awesome leading set us up game after game to win the event.”

The trio won the nine-end final 10-9 against Matthew Foster, Bryan Pulley and Lola Bayram.

The fifth end of the final was the turning point, though, when Lynn took an opposition bowl out of the scoring zone with his first bowl, and ended up picking up five shots to go ahead 8-3.

By End 7, Lynn’s team were leading 10-5. Foster’s team fought back to pick up three shots on End 8 to make it 10-8.

In the last end, Lynn’s team were down on the head until Lynn drew his second shot, which stayed in the scoring zone for the win.

For Williams, this title counts towards a gold star (five gold-star-status titles earn a bowler a gold star). For Lamont, it is title No.62, 17 of which have gold-star status and three of those have been won with Lynn this year. Lynn hits title No.141, 36 of which have gold-star status.