Ladies' league aspirations dented by home defeat

Up until the July break the ladies had only tasted defeat once and were sitting proudly on top of the league, however on the day the visitors coped better with the wet conditions to claim a 69-62 victory and six of the points on offer.

Ballymena's solitary point came on rink 1 where Jennie McCready, Marie Houston, Iris Millar and Barbara Cameron took on M Campbell.

The Braid ladies made a good start and after 8 ends they held a 3 shot lead but it got better for the Ballymena rink when they scored 11 unanswered shots over the next 6 ends to lead by 19 shots to 5. The visitors claimed 3 of the remaining ends to leave the final score 20 shots to 9 in favour of the home rink.

On rink 2 Grace Henry, Gladys Power, Kathleen Hoey and Donna McCloy found it tough going against the Portstewart rink skipped by M Clarke.

The Braid rink never really got going and could only score on one of the first 9 ends as the visitors opened up a 16 shot lead. Four ends later the gap was 17 shots and even though the Ballymena ladies rallied over the remaining ends it was not enough to stop the Portstewart rink from claiming a 22-11 victory.

Jean Rainey, Gwen McAuley, Pat Allen and Jennifer Dowds made a confident start in their game against T ONeill on rink 3 and after 5 ends they had established a 5 shot lead.

Unfortunately for the home rink it was the visitors who took control of the game when they won the next 8 ends to turn a 5 shot deficit in to an 11 shot advantage.

The Ballymena ladies fought back over the remainder of the game but in the end they came up short with the visitors going on to record victory by 19 shots to 13.

One of the youngest rinks to play for Ballymena Ladies took to the green on rink 4.

Megan Wilson, Erin Smith and Sarah Jane Coleman - who travelled to Worthing, England to represent Ireland in the Womens Under 25 Home International Series last weekend - were joined by Linda McCullough at lead in their game against B O'Neill.

This was always a close game with scores tied at 5-5 after 6 ends and 12-12 after 13 ends. The game changed however over the next 2 ends when the visitors scored counts of 3 and 4 to open up a 7 shot lead with only 3 ends left to play.

The young Ballymena rink did manage to win the final ends but could only score a total of 6 shots to leave the Portstewart ladies victorious by 19 shots to 18.

The ladies will be hoping to get back to winning ways this week when they travel to Magherafelt.