At the weekend past Banbridge bowling club were represented in three finals, Open Singles, Open Pairs and Senior Rinks taking place at Ward Park, Bangor.

In a great show by those playing all three titles on offer were captured by the Bann men who now go onto take part in the Irish finals at the end of the month.

Open Pairs

The first game on was the open pairs where Banbridge duo Brendan Davis and James Kelly up against hometown pair Jackie Erskine and Thomas Cannavan.

All the Banbridge winners celebrating the title haul at the weekend.

placeholder image — All the Banbridge winners celebrating the title haul at the weekend.

The Banbridge pair started off by dropping a count of 5 shots on just the second end but recouped these over the next few ends with some interest to lead 7-6 after 5 ends.

The game ebbed and flowed with the Banbridge pair always keeping their noses in front and building on their lead to be 16-9 ahead after 13 ends. This was a valuable lead to have over the last 5 ends as the Bangor lads fought back to close the gap to 16-13 with 2 ends to play but this would be as close as they would get with Davis and Kelly winning the last 2 ends, closing out the game 19-13 and chalk up the first title of the day for Banbridge.

In doing so it was a first NIBA title for both men after a few close calls over the years it was a well earned win for both.

Senior Rinks

The next title for Banbridge to challenge for was the Senior Rinks with Seamus Skelton, Tony Bell, Martin Nelson and Brendan Davis facing Jim Corry’s rink from Castle.

The Bann rink started well racing into a 9-4 lead after the first 5 ends and pushing on again to increase their lead to 15-6 after 8 ends. Just as the game looked to have got away from the Castle rink they came roaring back to win 6 of the next 7 ends to trail by just one shot after 15 ends at 16-15.

This set up a tense finish for the Bann rink but they won 2 of the last 3 ends to win the match by the minimum margin at 18-17 and claim title number 2 of the day for Banbridge and for skip Davis.

Open Singles

The final game on of the was the Open Singles where Banbridge were represented by Kyle Blakely who faced Colin Todd of Whitehead.

This game started out a cagey enough affair with both tied at 4-4 and 6-6 early on in the piece. This soon changed though as Blakely flipped the game on its head by winning 4 of the next 5 ends, scoring heavily to lead 18-7.

Although Todd did claim counts of 4 and 3 shots in the closing stages as Blakely tried to force the issue to claim the 3 shots needed for victory, he did indeed get them by ending the game rolling his opponents closest bowl out for a count of 2 shots to claim his first Open Singles title and his third NIBA title in total.

All in all it was a great day for Banbridge to win all three of the finals they were competing in and shows the club is very much on the up at present.

On behalf of those competing we would like to thank all the support there on the day and throughout the championships as well as all the well wishes as it is very much appreciated.

The winners now will look forward to the Irish Finals at the end of the month where they will again be held at Ward Park in Bangor and hopefully there is more silverware to come.