JUNIOR STATEWIDE CHALLENGE REPORT
The juniors descended on Kings Meadows Bowls Club today when they came together from across the state for the first round of the Statewide Challenge. The Bowls North team saw a few changes this year with a couple of members being unavailable and of course Jack and Peter there to support the players from the sidelines as they have now aged out. The team welcomed a couple of new players with Imogen Watson and Bill Rapihana, as well as some amazing girls from St Helens who may not have represented the North, but they were welcomed with open arms into the South team – Olive Hepp and Isabel Taylor
Our Northern side had a great start to their series with 3 out of 4 wins for the morning. Lachlan Strochnetter came up against the South side skipped by Eli Sutton in the first round of triples and he didn’t look like giving too many shots away right from the start. With a 5 – 0 lead after just 3 ends they kept the momentum going picking up a 4 and 5 to give them an overall finish of 24 – 10.
The second triples side was skipped by Fletcher Felmingham and he had his work cut out for him against North West’s Lachlan Thurley. It was a tough game for the north team but they didn’t give up, Fletcher played some great bowls to keep it tight throughout, with a finish of 10 – 19 the rink did well working together as best they could.
The next two games were the pairs, the first of these skipped by one of strongest players Ollie Morrison, helped by a great lead in James Jones against the South side skipped by Reiley Banks. Ollie took the lead early and didn’t let it go, picking up a 5 and two 3’s, this was a great bonus and this saw him finish the game 25 – 10.
The final game for the morning was our outstanding girls state captain Chloe Collins and her lead Trey Daines. Trey played some sensational bowls giving Chloe lots of bowls in the head at each crossover but with the talents of Jonty Hayes from North West it was going to be a challenge to keep hold of them. Chloe made sure everyone knew her talents when she too played some great shots to secure a very close win by just the one shot, finishing 20 – 19.
The afternoon was a bit up and down for our juniors, with the first up going to Ollie Morrison who had a singles game to remember against South’s Eli Sutton. Ollie had a goal in mind of keeping Eli’s score to a minimum and he did that right from the start when he picked up a 3 on the first end. Things only looked up from there and after only 14 ends Ollie was able to get the win finishing 21 – 4.
The other singles game didn’t have quite the ending we hoped for when Chloe battled Samuel Tuthill from the North West. Though Chloe held shot often and played some great bowls it was a close finish and Samuel got over her by just 3 shots finishing 18 – 21.
The afternoon also saw 2 fours games with the first being Lachlan Strochnetter up against the South’s Reiley Banks. Lachlan was on a mission once again playing some big bowls when he needed to getting multiple shots on 8 out of 15 ends, seeing a great win of 24 – 3 which is simply outstanding.
The final game for the day was Fletcher Felmingham once again coming up against Lachlan Thurley from the North West, and once again it was a battle to the end. Fletcher led his rink with great encouragement and winning almost half the ends to only go down by 1 shot, something to be proud of when the North West rink had two experienced state players.
The Northern side came together with a plan to take home as many points as they could and they did an outstanding job, they encouraged and supported each other, they made noise on the green and have shown that each of them are giving their all to be the best they can be.
The final results for the regions:
Northwest: 18 points
Bowls North: 15 points
Bowls South: 3 points
