LAWN BOWLS by Starweed
The Centre Open Mixed Pairs was completed late Sunday afternoon. With 22 entries the top 16 qualifiers went through to post-section Sunday. The others went to a consolation. After qualifying, the teams were seeded with top qualifier playing the bottom qualifier, etc. This made for some interesting match-ups and some upsets.
Marie Wright/George Vaotuua were too good for Steve and Cheryl Jenkins; Jeff and wife Joy Davis accounted for husband and wife Arthur and Carol Hawes; Lyn Trueman and Steve Goldsbury advanced over newbies, husband and wife Geoff and Karen Pinn. Anita Vaotuua/Otto Louw outclassed Boon McIlroy/Diane Phillips, and Ricky Miller/Karen Higgins brushed aside Queenie Takarua/Charlie Ure — who would have been a favoured team.
Husband and wife Tim and Ginny Sherriff overcame husband and wife Andy and Del Tamanui. Jamey Ferris/Tanya Harrison beat Marilyn Knowles/ Andrew Ball and Robin Jefferson/Dayvinia Mills cast aside July Williams/Sarah Brown.
First round losers went into a plate. The two teams left at the end of the day was between McIlroy and Williams. The game was to and fro between both teams and going into the last end they were locked 9 each. Facing defeat, Williams stepped up to the mat drawing the white cold with his last bowl for victory.
The consolation was between six teams and also came down to the last game.
Ngawai Turipa was playing with new bowler John Andrews. Having lost one of their two games, they had to beat the unbeaten team of Diane and Willy Murray and this they did, winning by four shots to take the division by two points on differential.
In the post-section quarterfinal Wright defeated Davis, Trueman def Vaotuua, Miller def Sherriff and Ferris def Jefferson.
The semis between Wright and Trueman came down to the penultimate end. Getting off to a slow start, Wright slowly pegged their deficit back to lead by two with two ends to play. A score to Trueman would certainly have made for an exciting last end but alas that wasn’t the case, dropping four shots to require six with one end to play. Wright made sure that would not happen.
The other game was a battle for most of it between Miller and Ferris, but a five-shot end to Ferris was to be Miller’s undoing.
The final saw Wright lead Ferris 5-2 after four ends but the next four ends saw Ferris pick up 11 shots, including another five-shot end. Wright scored three on the ninth end to trail by five with three to play. It was a matter of playing the board now and that Ferris did, coming through 14-9 victors.
This gave Ferris and Harrison their first Centre Open Pairs Title to add to their other titles.
It was good to see six husband and wife teams having a go together — and hopefully are all still happily married — as well as the juniors who gave it a go together. With the results I have in front of me, you all should be happy of your efforts against the more experienced teams.