Disappointing day for Ballymena ‘C’ team bowlers

Ballymena C hosted Pickie B on Saturday but it was a disappointing afternoon for the Ballymena men who could only claim 1 of the 7 points on offer.
Ballymena Bowling Club 'C' team ready for their home game against Pickie 'B' on Saturday. INBT 36-805HBallymena Bowling Club 'C' team ready for their home game against Pickie 'B' on Saturday. INBT 36-805H
Ballymena Bowling Club 'C' team ready for their home game against Pickie 'B' on Saturday. INBT 36-805H

On rink 1 Jimmy Shields, John Montgomery, William Crawford and John Elliott took on D Kennedy and for the first 16 ends of the contest there was little to close between the 2 rinks.

The lead changed on several occasions and with only 5 ends remaining only a total of 20 shots had been scored with the Braid men holding a slender 11-9 lead. The Ballymena rink had kept the best to last and they outscored the visitors by 10 shots to 2 to claim victory by 21 shots to 11.

Roy Kernohan, Robert McCready, Dessie Shaw and Liam Lyness found it tough going against N Belch on rink 2 and with one third of the game completed the Braid men trailed by 12 shots to 2.

Over the next 8 ends the Ballymena men settled down and with six ends left to play they had reduced the arrears to only 4 shots.

Unfortunately all their good work was undone over the next 2 ends when they conceded a total of 7 shots and even though Lyness’s men had slightly the better of the closing ends they still ended up on the wrong side of a 24-16 score line.

On rink 3 Gary Shaw, Andy Hill, Artie McAuley and Derek Greer found themselves on the back foot right from the start against N Irwin when they conceded account of 5 shots on the 2nd end. In fact the Braid men could only score 2 singles over the opening 8 ends as the visitors opened up a 10 shot advantage.

Ten shots was still the difference between the 2 rinks after 17 ends and even though the Ballymena rink outscored their opponents by 7 shots to 3 over the remaining ends it made little difference to the outcome of the game with the Pickie rink claiming victory by 22 shots to 16.

Willie McNabb, Alan O’Loan, Leslie Jackson and Alex Wilson made an encouraging start to their game against N Henderson on rink 4 and with 3 ends played they had opened up a 3 shot lead. Two ends later the scores were level at 5-5 and from then on the visitors took charge.

The Ballymena men found shots hard to come by and in actual fact they could only score on 3 more of the remaining 16 ends and during that period the Pickie men outscored the Braid rink by 25 shots to 4 to claim an emphatic 30-9 victory.

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