Bowlers overcome Larne - and hailstorm - to secure win

It was an awful afternoon for bowls and in fact the first end had not been completed when a heavy hail shower covered the green which delayed play by nearly half an hour.

When play resumed Ballymena had one rink very much in the ascendency however the other 3 games were much closer and in the end the Braid men claimed a hard earned 6 points.

Andrew Bonnar, J J Robinson, Mark Torrington and Jim Baker were quickly in to the groove on rink 1 against D Mc Randal and after 6 ends the Ballymena men had opened up a 10-1 lead.

Three ends later the margin was down to 4 shots and this was still the difference between the two rinks after 12 ends.

The remainder of the game belonged almost exclusively to the Ballymena men and over the course of the next 7 ends Baker’s men outscored the visitors by a massive 17 shots and even though the Braid rink lost the final ends it could not take to gloss off an excellent Ballymena performance with the final score 32-14.

Steven Shields, Sammy Allen, Andrew Morrison and Andrew Kyle did not make the best of starts against G Johnston on rink 2 and after 3 ends the visitors held a 6 shot lead and things did not look good for the Braid men when they conceded a count of 5 on the 6th end to trail by 9 shots.

The home rink rallied over the next 3 ends as they reduced the arrears to only 2 shots, but with the visiting third and skip playing some excellent bowls the Ballymena men fell further behind and after 17 ends the Larne rink lead by 25 shots to 10.

With the overall game in the balance the Braid rink made a big push to reduce the deficit and they won all of the final ends to eventually go down by 25 shots to 18.

James Gaston, Graham Wilson, Steven Falls and Nigel Robinson started very slowly against M Murphy on rink 2.

The Braid men claimed a single on the 1st end, however the visitors won the next 6 ends to open up a 9 shot lead. The Ballymena rink finally got in to the game when they won 4 of the next 5 ends to reduce the deficit to 4 shots but by the 16th end the margin had increased to 6 shots.

The next end built up well for Robinson’s men and when the Larne skip went to play his last bowl the Braid rink lay 5 shots which would have got them well and truly in to the game however the visiting skip played an excellent bowl to claim the shot.

With 3 ends remaining the Ballymena men trailed by 7 shots but they scored a single on the 19th end and when they followed this with a count of 4 shots they certainly had given themselves a chance of victory.

The Ballymena men played an excellent final end and with both of the Ballymena back end players playing some ‘big’ bowls the home rink picked up another 4 shots to claim an unlikely victory by 19 shots to 17.

On rink 4 J R Nicholl, Jimmy Hodges, Alistair Coleman and Steven Coleman shared 14 shots over the first 10 ends against the Larne rink skipped by A McLean.

The Braid men won the next 6 ends to double their score, but with only 3 ends left to play the margin had been reduced to only 4 shots.

Any chance of a Larne victory were extinguished over the 19th and 20th ends when the Ballymena rink scored another 3 shots to lead by 7 shots and even though the visitors scored a single on the final end it could not detract from a good solid Ballymena performance with the final score 17-11.

This week Ballymena Seniors travel to Mossley in the NIPGL Senior League.

* Don’t miss this week’s Ballymena Times for Graham Wilson’s comprehensive Ballymena Bowling Club round-up, along with news from Portglenone Bowling Club, and indoor bowling club end-of-season dinner pics.