Banbridge back to winning ways away to Whitehead

Rink 1

On rink 1 for Banbridge we had Mervyn Jess, John McCloughlin, Peter Haughey and Kyle Blakely against Stephen Moran’s Whitehead four.

The visitors raced into a 10-3 lead here after 7 ends but the home side clawed them back to 10-8 over the next 2 ends. The visitors maintained their 2 lead advantage at the 16 end mark edging out Whitehead 17-15 but the home side outscored the Bann rink down the run in to beat them 20-19 by virtue of a count of 2 shots in the last end.

Rink 2

On rink 2 for the visitors we had Alex Cromie, Adam Cromie, Brendan Davis and Philip Cromie lining out against Whitehead’s James Burns and his rink.

This game started out a cagey enough affair with both sides tied at 4-4 after 6 ends and again at 6-6 after 10 ends. The Bann four briefly fell behind over the next 4 ends to trail 11-9 but Cromie rallied the troops to win the last 7 ends for an easy 26-11 victory to all but seal the overall score for the team.

Rink 3

On rink 3 for the Bann we had Seamus Skelton, Tony Bell, Clifford Dennison and James Kelly facing Colin Todd’s rink.

The home side opened the scoring picking up 1 shot on the first end but failed to register again until the eighth end to trail 7-3 and tying the game by picking up 4 shots the following end.

The Bann rink found their stride again though and led 21-3 after 16 ends which proved to big of a deficit for Whitehead to overcome with Kelly’s rink closing out the game with a 24-15 victory.

Rink 4

On the final rink for Banbridge we had Ken Stevenson, Martin Nelson, Gareth McCloughlin and Gavan Blakely against the Whitehead rink skipped by Ryan McKeown.

Once again there wasn’t much in this game after 6 ends with the visitors edging it 7-6 but then scored heavily over the next 4 ends to stretch out to a 17-6 lead after 19 ends.

The home side roared back though to take the lead 18-17 after 16 ends which was short lived as the Bann retook the initiative to lead 19-18 after a count of 2 shots in the next end. This would be short lived though as Whitehead lifted a crucial count of 5 shots on the 18th end to ultimately prove the undoing of the Bann four as they failed to overcome this eventually losing out 26-22.

This was a good return to form and could easily have been 7 points as opposed to the 5 points the Banbridge side returned home with and importantly kept them 5.5 points ahead of closest rivals Bangor in the league before they met on Saturday.