Disappointing result for '˜B' team bowlers at Willowfield

Robert Mark helped his Ballymena B rink to claim their only point at Willowfield. INBT 25-190CS

The Braid men put in a good performance but in the end they were defeated by 10 shots and returned home with just 1 point to show for their efforts.

Jimmy Gage, Alan Smyth, Tommy Hill and Ivan Lynn made a very slow start against J Miller on rink 1 and in fact they could only score a total of 5 shots over the opening 12 ends.

On the other hand however the home rink picked up 4 counts of 3 shots and a count of 5 during the same period to accumulate a total of 21 shots to open up a 16 shot advantage.

The Ballymena men upped their performance over the remainder of the game but they had left themselves too much to do eventually going down by 23 shots to 16.

On rink 2 Robert Mark, John McFall, David Torrington and Nigel McFadden were level after 6 ends against J Moore with the score board reading 7-7.

Ten ends later there was still nothing to choose between the rinks with scores tied at 15-15.

Six shots over the next 2 ends set the Braid men on their way to victory and by the time the game had reached its conclusion McFadden’s men had increased their advantage to 7 shots with the final score 24-17.

Billy McCandless, Stewart McCarthy, Geoff Padgett and Sammy Allen and the home rink skipped by B Nixon both won 5 of the opening ends on rink 3.

Both rinks scored 9 shots so going in to the second period of the game everything was still to be played for.

The Willowfield rink took charge of the game when they won the next 5 ends to open up a 12 shot lead.

The visitors had much the better of the closing ends but they came up short eventually going down by 24 shots to 18.

Paul Davidson, Jim Cameron, Leslie Barr and Danny McCullough came flying out of the blocks against G Childs on rink 4 and with only 3 ends played they had established a 9 shot lead.

The lead however was short lived and 4 ends later the home rink was back on level terms.

A brace of 2’s over the next couple of ends saw the Braid men back in front but the home rink won 5 of the next 6 ends to wipe out the Ballymena advantage and open up a 5 shot lead.

Both rinks scored 5 shots over the remaining ends to leave the home rink victorious by 24 shots to 19.