STEVE GOLDSBURY
It was another weekend for favourites at the Bowls Gisborne East Coast Centre Open Pairs.
Gisborne club members Jamey Ferris and Steve Goldsbury won the men’s event and Kahutia’s Glenys Whiteman and Francie Adair claimed the women’s title.
All four bowlers were also in centre championship-winning fours teams at Tolaga Bay two weeks ago.
Section play for the 18 men’s pairs team was held at Kahutia on Saturday.
Section A first-round play featured a big upset when Kahutia juniors Mike Howes and Ray Young beat Goldsbury and Ferris 17-10.
Despite winning their second game, skip Goldsbury and lead Ferris decided to change positions and the switch worked, with comfortable wins against George and Rangi Taingahue Junior 18-8, and Steve Berezowski and Bruce Ball 17-7.
Goldsbury and Ferris were joined in Sunday’s post-section play by Arthur Hawes and Mal Trowell (Gis), Jon Davies and Luke Sanders (Poverty Bay), and Murray Duncan and Ben Elkington (Tolaga Bay).
There was much interest in Section B, which included four well-performed teams in Te Karaka’s David File and John Dawson, Gisborne’s John Kanawa and Ricky Miller, Gisborne’s Bob McIlroy and Charlie Ure and Kahutia’s Bruno Lourie and Murray Murton.
Lourie scraped home 11-10 against McIlroy, File beat Kanawa 18-13 in the third round, then Kanawa suffered his second loss in going down to McIlroy 20-11 in the fourth round.
However, with two big wins in his other games, Kanawa made the top eight for post-section play along with File, Lourie and McIlroy.
With the two-hour time limit restriction lifted for post-section play, the quarterfinals produced some intense competition and a high standard of play.
Ferris got the upper hand over Hawes in the last few ends to win 17-13.
McIlroy and File had a marathon match of over three hours but the former finished strongly to win 24-16.
Lourie was too strong for Davies 27-3 while Duncan was ahead 12-11 after 14 ends against Kanawa but dropped a maximum count of six shots on the next end and lost 20-12.
In the semifinals, McIlroy led Ferris 12-8 after eight ends only for Ferris and Goldsbury to go on a scoring spree.
Over the next five ends they picked up 16 shots to race to a 24-12 lead and McIlroy condeded at 27-13 down on the 16th end.
The other semifinal pitted centre newcomers Lourie and Kanawa and it wasn’t long before Miller gained dominance over opposition lead Murton. With Kanawa providing admirable support, they went 10-2 ahead after eight ends.
Four shots on the 11th end gave Lourie and Murton some hope of a recovery but Kanawa and Miller applied the pressure on the last two ends to win 17-11.
Another close game developed in the final. It was 9-9 after eight ends and 13-apiece after 13.
The turning point came on the 13th, 14th and 15th ends from which Ferris picked up five shots to move 16-13 ahead.
On the last end, Kanawa was only three shots behind (17-14) but could score only one shot and went down 17-15.
Goldsbury now has 39 centre titles and Ferris, 12.