PBEC brought crashing back to earth after first-team win

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REALITY bit Poverty Bay-East Coast on day 2 of the men’s national interprovincial tournament in Northland yesterday.

After enjoying the high of their first team win in round 2 of the week-long matchplay competition on the Mangawhai a on Tuesday, PBEC were brought back to earth with losses in rounds 3 and 4.

PBEC went down 4½-½ to North Harbour in the morning and were whitewashed 5-0 by Canterbury in the afternoon.

William Brown, who won both his matches on day 1, provided the only positive result on the scorecard — a half against Harbour’s Kevin Koong.

PBEC No.1 Tini Hawea lost 5 and 4 to New Zealand amateur strokeplay champion Mark Hutson, No.2 Nathaniel Cassidy lost on the same hole to North Island under-19 champion Kit Bittle, No.4 Kurtis Cortesi also went down on 14 to James Hydes and No.5 Andy Higham lost 1-down to Auckland strokeplay champion Jake Lee.

Teenager Hawea had his closest match so far in the Canterbury tie. He lost 3 and 1 to New Zealand junior representative and national amateur runner-up Tom Parker.

Cassidy was thumped 7 and 6 by Matt McLean, Brown suffered his first loss of the tournament — 2 and 1 to Otago strokeplay and Canterbury matchplay champion Hiroki Miya.

Cortesi was beaten 6 and 5 by Reid Hilton and Higham went down 3 and 2 to Dominic Brettkelly.

Parker, Miya and Brettkelly were members of the Canterbury side who won the New Zealand junior interprovincial at Cambridge in October.

The defeats dropped PBEC to bottom of their seven-province section although they are just one team point behind second-placed Hawke’s Bay in what is shaping as the closest race for the semifinals in the history of the national interprovincial.

PBEC have one team point and 4½ individual wins – just half an individual win behind Taranaki. North Harbour lead on 3 points and 11.5 individual wins, Hawke’s Bay are on 2 (11), Canterbury 2 (9½), Otago 2 (9) and Southland 1 (9½).

PBEC faced Otago this morning in the traditional one-round Thursday. They have a bye tomorrow morning and end the tournament with what could be a crunch positional clash with Taranaki in the afternoon.

¦ Hawke’s Bay-Poverty Bay’s semifinal hopes were dashed at the women’s national interprovincial on the Sherwood Park course just out of Whangarei yesterday.

Gisborne’s Tessa McDonald had a narrow loss and a win as HBPB went down 3½-1½ to Canterbury in the morning and 4-1 to Bay of Plenty in the afternoon.

Playing at No.2 in the five-woman side, 22-year-old McDonald lost 1-down to Canterbury’s Olive Tapu but bounced back with a whitewash-saving 4 and 3 defeat of BoP’s Jodae Ngaheu.

The double team loss put HBPB out of the semifinal reckoning.

They ended the day sitting fourth in their section on two team points – two points behind Bay of Plenty and Waikato while Canterbury are top on five points.

HBPB faced Southland in their final section tie this morning.