On the mats — indoor bowls news

ALL SMILES: Winners of the local final of the New Zealand indoor bowls mixed fours were (from left) Lois Lamont, Bruce Easton, skip David Lynn and Sian Williams. They head off to the NZ zone final in Whakatane next month with a chance to make the NZ final. Team picture by Liam Clayton,

The Poverty Bay-East Coast indoor bowls team travelled to Tauranga and won the Friendship Cup against King Country by 43 points to 25.

The Bay team also contested the Hone Trophy against Tauranga, Thames Valley and King Country.

Tauranga were far too strong for the other teams, but PBEC and Thames Valley were second-equal.

In Gisborne, the local final of the New Zealand mixed fours was won by David Lynn, Bruce Easton, Lois Lamont and 14-year-old Sian Williams.

They beat Malcolm Trowell, Nathan Trowell, Ada Clapperton and young Kayla Trowell 13-8 in a nine-end final that was a titanic battle throughout.

After six ends, the score was 6-5 to Lynn’s team, but on End 7, disaster struck. Easton missed the shot he was going for and took out the team’s only bowl on the head, which put them five shots down. Lynn had no alternative but to kill the end and incur three penalty points to be 8-6 down.

On the last end, Lynn’s team picked up two points to level the scores and force a deciding end.

In that end, Williams, Lamont and Easton played great bowls to put their team four shots up. Lynn then dead-drew the kitty for five shots, forcing Malcolm Trowell to drive at the head. But he hit short bowls with both of his drives, and Lynn’s team had won.

Lynn’s team will travel to the NZ zone final in Whakatane next month. It will be the ninth appearance in a NZ zone final for Easton, the eighth for Lynn and Lamont, and the first for Williams. Lynn, Easton and Lamont have also made the NZ final of this event in the past.

Last weekend, 15-year-old Gisborne Boys’ High School student Matthew Foster was all class in the Gisborne Glass Friday Night Singles. A new, faster format meant only four games of seven ends were played in qualifying for sudden-death playoffs, where only three ends were played.

Of the 22 players who entered, 10 qualified.

In the playoffs, Foster beat Aku Keelan in the quarterfinals and his uncle Malcolm Trowell in the semis. Foster picked up two shots on ends 1 and 2 to shut Trowell out of the game and win 4-0.

In the final against Andrew Rickard, Foster picked up three points on End 1 and two on End 2, meaning — at 5-0 up — he could not be beaten with one end to go and each bowler having only four bowls. Foster now has four centre titles, one short of a silver star.