Disappointment for Midweek men

BALLYMENA Midweek Park entertained Ards in the third match of their NIPGL Midweek League Division 1 campaign, last Wednesday night.

The home team were hoping to record their first victory of the season and after 16 ends it looked as though this would be the case however in a strong finish it was the visitors who came through to snatch victory, by 74 shots to 69.

On rink 1 John Houston, Liam Lyness, Dessie Shaw and John Greer were in action against R Gibson and for the first 10 ends there was nothing in the game with the scores tied at 6-6.

The visitors then made a decisive move when they scored 9 shots over the next 3 ends to seemingly take the game away from the home rink, but the Ballymena men hit straight back scoring 8 shots and reduce the arrears to only a single shot with 2 ends remaining.

The Ards men scored a single on the 17th end to lead by 2 shots however on the last end, and with the Braid men lay a match winning count of 3 shots, the visiting skip played a great final bowl to claim the shot and victory by 17 shots to 14.

Ken Connell, Robert Mark, George Stewart and Jim Cameron made a good start against B Martin on rink 2 to lead by 7 shots to 2 after 6 ends however two counts of 3 shots on the 7th and 9th ends in favour of the visiting rink saw the scores tied at 8-8.

The Ballymena men then managed to win five of the next 6 ends to lead by 17 shots to 14, however the men from Ards claimed half a point when they scored 4 shots on the final 2 ends to leave the scores level at 17-17.

On rink 3 Roy Kernohan, Alan McCombe, Paul Davidson and Billy Scullion scored a count of 5 shots on the fifth end to open up a 7 shot advantage over the Ards rink skipped by L Wilkinson but by the half way stage of the game the score was 15-4 in favour of Scullion’s men.

The second half of the game however belonged to the visitors. Two counts of 5 shots on the tenth and twelfth ends saw them level the match and then they outscored their Ballymena opponents by 9 shots to 2 over the remaining ends to claim victory by 24 shots to 7.

Eddie Leckey, Jackie Barr, Don McKee and Harold Smyth made a great start against R McCallum on rink 4. They won seven of the first ten ends, which included a count of 7 shots on the eighth end to open up a 18-4 lead.

Unfortunately the Braid men could not maintain this momentum and were only able to score 3 singles during the remainder of the match, eventually winning by 21 shots to 16.

This week Ballymena Midweek Park will hope to put their poor start behind them when they make the long trip to Dunbarton.

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