Ladies’ title hopes suffer setback after defeat against Londonderry

Jennie McCready, Marie Houston, Iris Millar and Barbara Cameron lost 5 of the first 6 ends against M Harrison to trail by 7 shots to 2.

Successive 2’s brought the Braid ladies back in to the game however the visitors scored 8 shots over the next 4 ends to extend their advantage to 6 shots.

The Ballymena ladies somehow found another gear and they dominated the remaining ends scoring 12 shots without reply to claim victory by 19 shots to 13. The Londonderry ladies could only field 3 players and therefore they lost a quarter of their shots to leave the final score 19 – 9.75.

Megan Wilson, Gladys Power, Liz McAuley and Donna McCloy were involved in a close match against J Lindsay.

The Ballymena ladies got off to the best possible start when they lifted a count of 4 shots on the first end but 5 ends later the visitors were on level terms at 7-7.

The next few ends were tight but victory eluded the visitors as the Braid ladies finished strongly to score 7 unanswered shots and claim a hard fought victory by 17 shots to 13.

Sile Garvey, Barbara Burnett, Jacqueline Jones and Sarah Jane Coleman had a bad day at the office against J McClure.

The visitors began well when they won the first 3 ends to open up a 5 shot lead. Four ends later the Braid ladies had reduced the deficit to 2 shots however over the next 6 ends they conceded four counts of 3 shots to find themselves 11 shots adrift of their opponents.

The Ballymena rink continued to struggle and over the remaining ends they were outscored by 8 shots to 2 as Londonderry went on to record a well deserved 28-11 victory.

Jean Rainey, Kathleen Hoey, Pat Allen and Jennifer Dowds made a slow start against H Taylor and with 5 ends played the visitors led 7-0.

Ballymena finally got on to the score board when they scored a single on the 6th end and 3 ends later they had hauled themselves back in to the game with the score board now reading 7-7.

Unfortunately the Braid rink fell behind again by 7 shots but with 2 ends remaining they had played themselves back in to the game to get within a shot of the visitors. Any thoughts of a Ballymena victory however were dashed on the penultimate end when the visitors lifted a count of 5 shots and the visitors eventually won by 20 shots to 13.