On the mats — indoor bowls news

QUEEN’S BIRTHDAY WINNERS: The winning fours team in the Queen’s Birthday Rotorua indoor bowling event included Gisborne father and son Malcolm and Nathan Trowell. The team members are (from left): Malcolm Trowell, Steve Flaszynski (Waikato), Nathan Trowell and Keith Setter (Tauranga). Picture supplied

It has been a busy time for local bowlers who travelled away, starting with the Rotorua Queen’s Birthday event.

All three Gisborne bowlers who competed there reached the final of the fours event.

Gisborne’s Malcolm Trowell and his son Nathan teamed up with Tauranga’s Keith Setter and Waikato’s Steve Flaszynski to dominate the fours final.

They beat Gisborne’s David Lynn, Lisa Gould (Upper Hutt), Jason Parker (Counties) and Roger Andrew (Counties) 9-3.

In the singles, all three Gisborne bowlers qualified, but Lynn and Malcolm Trowell were defeated in the first round of the sudden-death playoffs.

This left 14-year-old Nathan Trowell still in, and he turned heads once again, defeating Tauranga’s Phillip Gunderson 9-7 in the last 16.

He then came up against 2017 national singles champion Wayne Baker from Waikato, and anything Baker did, Nathan did better to win 9-4.

Trowell was then in the last eight, and came up against Keith Setter, another former New Zealand singles champion.

Setter had no answer to Trowell’s class, and the young Gisborne bowler won 13-2.

In the semifinal, Trowell was up against New Zealand representative and multiple national champion Paul Wright, of Auckland.

Both players were in top form in a see-sawing game. On the last end, Trowell was in front but Wright played a great final bowl to win the game.

Wright said afterwards that he was amazed at Trowell’s talent for his age, and that he had a huge future in the sport.

In the pairs, Lisa Gould (Upper Hutt) and Lynn qualified in the pairs and reached the last eight.

Five days later, Lynn was back in Rotorua with Bryan Pulley, Lois Lamont, Pauline Stone, Ian Greeks, Royden Owen and Doc Tipene for the national indoor bowls championships over eight days.

In the singles, Lynn qualified in the open event and Pulley qualified in the masters’, but both bowed out early in the sudden-death playoffs.

In the open triples, Tipene teamed up with Wairarapa pair Mathew Day and Ray Moore to qualify, but they narrowly lost early in the sudden-death playoffs by one point.

In the masters’ triples, Bryan Pulley teamed up with Bay Of Plenty pair Colin Hansen and Delwyn Hughes to qualify for the sudden-death playoffs, as did Ian Greeks, Pauline Stone and Royden Owen.

Pulley’s team dipped out 10-5 in the first game, but Greeks and team played great bowls to win their last-16 game 6-5 against Thames Valley’s Mark Davey, Mark Jerkovich and Con O’Rielly.

However, they lost their last-eight game 13-2 to Hawke’s Bay’s Bruce Dalton, Ron Searancke and Rod West.

In the masters’ fours, Pulley, Greeks, Stone and Owen qualified for the sudden-death playoffs and defeated Bay of Plenty’s John Raynor, Murray Harris, Cheryl Wiggins and Delwyn Hughes 6-3, before losing in the last eight, 14-6, to the team who evenually won the title — Gordon Lang, Carol Lovell, Yvonne Collins and Tricia Land (King Country) — a great effort by Greeks and team.