Northland bowlers take good share of spoils

Success for Northland at the regional finals of the Pathways competition with John Dunn from Onerahi winning the men's singles and Betty Pouwhare and Manu Timoti from Hikurangi winning the women's pairs.
John had a fight on his hands with his Far North opponent but managed to get there with a 25-24 win, while the Hikurangi girls were more comfortable 21-16 winners against North Harbour.
All these players will now go on to the national finals in Rotorua at the beginning of April.
The singles will be played on April 2 and 3 while the pairs is set down for the 4th and 5th of the month.
Hopefully Northland will end up with another national title to go with those won by the Kensington women at the nationals in Auckland at Christmas time.
_o0o_ This weekend saw the playing of both the men's and women's Champion of Champions pairs.
It turned out to be a big weekend for the Dargaville club with the men's pair of Alan Rakich and Tom Ker winning the men's event and Tottie Rakich and Ann Radonich winning the women's.
As far as I can tell this is the first time the same club has won the identical discipline in the same year but no doubt somebody will inform me otherwise if this is the case.
The men did it the hard way losing their first game on Saturday morning to Bowls Whangarei and so had to go through each succeeding round knowing that another loss would be the end of their campaign.
To their credit they held their nerve and defeated Kensington's Mike Butler and Eric Pattillo in the final.
The Dargaville women were in much the same situation. They won their first two games before a big loss to Hikurangi left them with just one life after round 3, but they also held in there and got their revenge by beating Hikurangi's Sophie Anderson and Maree Attwood 21-18 in the final.
Both competitions were played at the Kamo greens and it was very good to see all the top men and women bowlers together at the one venue. _o0o_ You will note from the above article that the Rakich husband and wife combination had a very good tournament.
To put the icing on the cake the win by Tottie Rakich was her 5th Centre title and earned her a Gold Star.
Husband Alan already has his Gold Star and won his first Centre point back in 1977 when he won the First Year Champion of Champion Singles when that event still counted towards a Gold Star.
Tottie has now caught up by gaining her own Gold Star, although to be fair she has been playing a lot less time than Alan. I would suspect that the discussions around the kitchen table in that household would be bowls, bowls and bowls. Well done to them both on their achievements. _o0o_ Last week I reported on the results of the men's first year singles. This week I have the results of the women's competition played at Kamo the same day.
The winner was Emma Hinge from Kensington Women with 4 wins ahead of Ellie Thompson from Arapohue and Kay Denison from Bowls Whangarei who both had 3 wins but Ellie gained second placing by just one end. Good bowling by all participants. _o0o_ There appears to be some confusion over how to get results of your club competitions printed in the Advocate.
Do not rely on me to report your tournament as I may not have enough time or space to get it in for you. The sports editor asks that you e-mail your results to sports@northernadvocate.co.nz and they will then be printed in the results column.
I will still continue to report on the major events around the area but I cannot guarantee that I can get all results in this column. _o0o_
We are entering a busy time of the year with a lot of major tournaments coming up starting with the Te Kopuru club Dragicevich Triples this weekend.
Next weekend is Easter with men's events at Kensington and Dargaville and women at Bowls Whangarei while the first weekend in April is always the time for Arapohue's Fort Threes. Get your entries in.