Whanganui men and women's academy bowls finals a tight affair

Both the men's and women's Academy Interclub tournaments produced tight results over the weekend when players with eight years or fewer in the game battled it out.

The format of this competition features a team of four players playing variations of all formats of the game — singles, pairs, triples and fours.

In the men's fixture at Gonville, a tight competition saw Laird Park (Wayne Broughton, Desmond Pirere, Mike O'Donnell and Kevin Redshaw) come out the winners with eight wins and a shot differential of +58 from 10 matches played.

Second and third place will provide some bragging rights at Durie Hill Bowling Club as Durie Hill team 1 (Dan Collins, Rick Winterburn, Phil Huwyler and Jon Henderson) beat out Durie Hill team 2 (Gene Ridgeway, Shane Broderson, Ray Coker and Les Murcott). Both teams won seven matches from their 10 games but team 1 had a shot differential of +51 which beat out team 2, who had a shot differential of +50.

In a tight competition, fourth place went to Wanganui (Michael O'Leary, Laurie Hunt, David Barton and Robert Le Quesne) who also won seven of their 10 matches and finished two shots out of third place with a shot differential of +48.

The women's competition, at Aramoho, followed the same format and also provided a tight race for first and second place that came down to the last game of the competition — a fours match between the two teams vying for first place.

In that match Aramoho (Jill Rohloff, Jackie Ragan, Gaylene Reid and Margaret Messant) prevailed over Wanganui (Debbie Wildermoth, Denise Taylor, Christine Browne and Karen Hunt) to take out the title.

Aramoho finished the weekend on eight wins from 10 matches with a shot differential of +43 and Wanganui finished with seven wins and a shot differential of +52.

Third place went to Laird Park (Shirley Dollimore, Jennie Redshaw, Lynn Cribb and Beverley Matthews) with three wins (-63) and Wanganui East (Margaret Blinkhorne, Sue Jermy, Carol White and Ann Morgan) finished in fourth place with two wins (-32).