Poverty Bay Bowling Club’s winning champion of champions open women’s fours team: Jenny Amor (left), Anita Vaotuua, Cheryl Jenkins and Jessie Davis-Law. Amor and Davis-Law also won the open women’s pairs. Photo / Marc Alexander
Poverty Bay Bowling Club’s winning champion of champions open women’s fours team: Jenny Amor (left), Anita Vaotuua, Cheryl Jenkins and Jessie Davis-Law. Amor and Davis-Law also won the open women’s pairs. Photo / Marc Alexander
Jessie Davis-Law and Jenny Amor ended the weekend with two centre titles each as club champions competed for district supremacy.
Bowls Gisborne-East Coast champion of champions pairs and fours were contested at Kahutia, Te Karaka and Gisborne club greens.
Poverty Bay members Davis-Law and (standing in for DebsHancock) Amor won the open women’s champion of champions pairs on Saturday and joined clubmates Anita Vaotuua (Davis-Law’s sister) and Cheryl Jenkins to win the open women’s fours on Sunday.
Open men’s fours winners Wairoa are Mo Governor (left), Vern Withey, Wayne Goodley and Peter Robinson.
Te Karaka duo David File and Shaun Goldsbury won the open men’s pairs and Wairoa Bowling Club’s Peter Robinson, Vern Withey, Mo Governor and Wayne Goodley won the open men’s fours.
Te Karaka made it a pairs double when Alicia Ruru and Greg Flett won the optional junior champion of champions pairs at Gisborne Bowling Club on Saturday, beating Kahutia father and son Geoff and Liam Pinn.
Gisborne Bowling Club’s Delores Woodcock, Jackie Horsfall, Marty Reynolds and Hiria Nepe won the optional junior fours at the Kahutia greens, beating Tolaga Bay’s Rewi Castle, Shane Smiler, Malachi Gray-Taingahue and Haare Kopua.
Champion of champions open women’s and open men’s pairs: Poverty Bay’s Jenny Amor (left) and Jessie Davis-Law, and Te Karaka duo David File and Shaun Goldsbury.
The open pairs at Te Karaka got the weekend off to a cracking start. Matches were played under a one-life system, which means sudden death.
In the women’s final, Davis-Law and Amor beat last year’s champions, Wairoa duo Glenda Kapene and Joanne Wroe, 14-12 after 18 nerve-jangling ends.
Both teams showed skill and composure under pressure and no easy ends were on offer.
The men’s final was equally intense. Tolaga Bay’s Don Williams and Boon McIlroy (replacing Vern Alder, who was ill) had an early 9-3 lead but Te Karaka surged back and led 15-12 going into the last end.
With Te Karaka holding two shots close together, and a third nearby, Williams delivered a drive to disrupt or kill the end. The scoring bowls remained in place, and File and Goldsbury won 18-12 on the 17th end.
Te Karaka Bowling Club members Greg Flett and Alicia Ruru are champion of champions optional junior pairs winners.
Poverty Bay’s success in the open women’s fours at Kahutia Bowling Club was built on skill, composure and two match-defining moments.
The first came two-thirds of the way through the final, when Poverty Bay picked up five shots to go from 8-7 up to 13-7.
The Kahutia four of Glenys Whiteman, Dayvinia Mills, Ngamiro Allen and Karen Pinn responded with two shots.
On the 12th, they were still six shots back at 15-9, but deep into the end they held what looked like six shots, which could have levelled the scores at 15-all.
Then came the second key moment.
Vaotuua played a running shot that looked wide, but it clipped one of the front bowls and came to rest beside – and touching – the jack.
Whiteman’s attempt to shift the offending bowl came desperately close, but Poverty Bay retained the advantage and were 16-9 up with two ends to go.
Kahutia picked up a shot on the next end and needed six shots on the last to draw level. Instead, Poverty Bay women held their nerve and took two shots to win 18-10.
Wairoa felled some tall timber on their way to the open men’s fours title at Kahutia.
First up, they beat the Gisborne club’s Malcolm Trowell and Warren Gibb (half of this year’s winning Burton Cup team), Arthur Hawes and Andrew Ball.
In the semi-final, they beat national fours bronze medallists Leighton Shanks, Kyle Pinn, Liam Pinn and July Hoepo, of Kahutia.
Tolaga Bay looked to be down and out in the final, when Wairoa led 13-3 with four ends to go. But in a late charge, Tolaga Bay picked up eight shots.
It wasn’t enough. Wairoa took the title with a 15-11 win – just reward for their consistently skilful play.
Optional junior fours winners Gisborne are Jackie Horsfall (front left), Hiria Nepe, Delores Woodcock and Marty Reynolds. At back are runners-up Tolaga Bay, represented by Rewi Castle (left), Haare Kopua, Shane Smiler and Malachi Gray-Taingahue.
In the optional junior fours, five teams played games comprising two sets of five ends, with a tie-breaker if required.
Gisborne (Woodcock, Horsfall, Reynolds and Nepe) won the final against Tolaga Bay (Castle, Smiler, Gray-Taingahue and Kopua) in a tie-breaker.
Tolaga Bay made the early running, with a 10-2 win in the first set. Gisborne forced the tie-breaker with a 5-4 second-set win.
Nepe delivered the crucial shot in the tie-breaker. Her second bowl stopped next to the jack.
Tolaga Bay got two bowls close by, and threw everything at the head, but Nepe still held shot. With the rest of her team playing cautiously so as not to ruin a good thing, Gisborne weathered the storm.
The champion of champions open men’s and women’s triples will be held at Wairoa on Saturday, with junior triples at the Gisborne club the same day.
The singles for open men and women and for juniors will be held at the Gisborne club on Sunday.
