Saturday afternoon brought another set of unified county finals at Portland BC. The offerings today was the Men’s Pairs, Women’s 2 wood Singles and the Men’s County Champion of Champion Singles.
Firstly I will start with the Women’s 2 Wood Singles final, which brought together 2 ladies from Wooler BC – which were Victoria Symons and Ruby Robinson. The game was evenly poised through the first few ends, with it being 5 all at 7 ends, and this continued through to 12 ends, where it was 8 all, and Ruby then scored 1 to make it 9 – 8. However this proved a decisive point in the game, as this was the last time Ruby would score unfortunately as Victoria went on a 6 end scoring run putting Vic 15 – 9 up, with only 2 ends to play. Therefore Victoria secured the Women’s County 2 wood singles title and will represent Northumberland in the Bowls England National Finals next month. Victoria will be teaming up with Ruby tomorrow morning in the Fours, where they will face Susan MacDonald’s Hexham Elvaston quartet.
L-R: BNWS Hon Pres Vivienne Shepherd and Victoria Symons
On to the Men’s Finals – and the Pairs, which saw past winners Gosforth’s Josh Minto & Chris Yeomans face St. Georges BC Alan Stewart & Karl Jameson. Minto & Yeomans were determined to make up from their 4’s defeat the previous evening, and started well, being 10 – 2 at 5 ends. This pattern unfortunately continued for the Morpeth duo, as on the next they dropped a 5, Jameson managed to score a 1 on the 7th end. But this was the last time they would score as the Gosforth pair scored on the next 5 ends to take the title and book their place at the National Finals next month.
L-R: Josh Minto & Chris Yeomans
The final game on the green was the internal County Champion of Champions Final, where 2019 runner up St. Georges Phil Harvey was looking to go one better and took on Benfield’s Paul Proctor. Proctor started well, and opened up a 7 – 1 lead, but Harvey hit back to score on the next 4 ends to lead 9 – 7. The game see-sawed again with this time Proctor taking the next 5 ends himself to lead 14 – 9. Phil scored on 2 of the next 3 ends, including a treble to reduce the deficit to only 2 shots at 15 – 13. But Paul did the same himself (scoring 2 of the next 3 ends) a double, and then a treble to only need 1 shot at 20 – 14. But Harvey hit back and scored a treble himself to take the game to 20 – 17, and possibly looking to count a full house of 4, like he did in the semi-final last Sunday (21-20). But it was not to be as Paul collected the vital and decisive single shot to take the game 21 – 17.
L-R: Paul Proctor & BNMS Hon Pres John Harthen
Phil as mentioned in previous post this week is still battling in the Bowls England National Champion of Champions, and despite Phil winning the area, Phil has to play the Durham area winner – which is Brian Poulter, and this game takes place on Tuesday at Pelton Fell BC. I’m sure we wish Phil the very best of luck on this night, with the winner qualifying for the National Finals.
Tomorrow at Portland BC, there are 2 sessions – 10am and 2pm – so please come along and support the finals and players. I’m sure all concerned will welcome any support (and hopefully it would have stopped raining by then too!).