LADIES OPEN STATEWIDE CHALLENGE REPORT

A wet welcome to the first round of the Open SWC.  Due to a week of wet weather across the state, it became necessary to transfer the event indoors, with the ladies playing at the Devonport Country Club and the men at the Burnie Indoor Centre. Thank you to both venues for making themselves available to hold this event. In the morning game we played the Northwest team.

The rink of Denise Middap, Trudy Rundle, Jean Claridge and well lead by Maggie Campbell had a close game against a rink led by Rae Simpson. It was a game of the lead changing a few times, but by the 13 end, our ladies took the lead and remained in charge for the rest of the game, coming away with a 15 to 12 win

The rink of Lyn Cornelius, Janice Taylor, Julie Bannon and skipped by Di Byard also had a tight tussle, with our ladies not giving an inch, taking a slight lead on the 8^th end and not looking back, with a 5 shot win, finishing with a scoreline of 14 to 9.

The rink of Nakia Daines, Janet McCarthy, Vicki Winley and ably led by Maureen Zoon had a very difficult match. This was one of those games where the score does not indicate the quality of the game. For most of the ends, our ladies had their bowls in the head, and quite often holding the shot, but the opposing third and skip kept either taking our bowls out or else drawing some fantastic bowls to take the end from us. Credit where credit is due, those two ladies had a great day out. At the finish, the final scoreline was 7 to 29. Still a great effort by our team.

Across the rinks…
After 6 ends…..  BN..12       NW..21
After 12 ends…. BN..20       NW..37
After 18 ends…. BN..36       NW..50           BN..4pts.      NW..8pts

Final scores –
D Byard def Pickering 9
M Campbell 15 def  Simpson 12              
M Zoon 7 lt Rose 29

Following lunch we played against the Southern team.

Di Byards team played a steady game, with the lead changing 4 times, but our ladies kept their composure and never allowed their opponents to get away, with only being 1 shot down going into the last end, however the skip played a nice shot to score her team a 3. Final score 17 to 21

Maggie Campbells team took control from the first bowl, barely allowing their opponents to score, with them only scoring on 2 ends for the entire game.

It was a brilliant display of bowls from our ladies, the advantage of always having bowls in the head really showed. Final score being 27 to 3

Maureen Zoon’s team were keeping in touch for the first 11 ends, but then the southern team put their foot down to take control of the game, even though our girls game remained at the same high standard, the opposition just would not give up ground. It was this teams 2^nd game today where the scoreline does not tell the story.