Senior bowlers make history by retaining league title

BALLYMENA Seniors won the NIPGL Senior League Division title this week without having to play a bowl.

With only 1 game remaining in the league Ballymena led Dunbarton by 2.5 points and coincidently Castleton was the opposition for both teams.

Last Tuesday night Castleton were due to travel to Dunbarton, however they contacted the Gilford men on Monday night to advise that they were unable to field a team and that they would have to concede the 7 points which would have given Dunbarton a 4.5 point lead.

The story took another twist last Tuesday night when Castleton contacted the Ballymena team to advise that they could not field a team either for the game next week and so Ballymena were awarded the 7 points to give the title to the Braid team.

Winning the league has created a little history of the Ballymena Senior team.

The Braid men have actually won the NIPGL Senior League Division 1 title a total of 6 times before but this is the first time that Ballymena have actually retained the title.

Also this year the NIPGL Senior League was reformatted from 2 leagues in to 3 leagues with each team playing on a home and away basis and the Ballymena men can now claim to have been the first team to win the newly structured NIPGL Senior League Division 1.

PGL CUP FINAL

Ballymena Seniors 71, Belmont 86: Last Tuesday night Ballymena and Belmont resumed the NIPGL Senior Cup Final at Old Bleach.

The previous Thursday night the final had to be abandoned after 3 ends due to the green flooding with Belmont holding a 5 shot advantage.

Again it was the Belfast team who made the better start and towards the half way stage of the contest they held a lead somewhere in the region of 20 shots.

As the game progressed the Braid men gradually reduced the deficit down to single figures however the Belmont team finished strongly to claim victory by a margin of 15 shots.

On rink 1 David Torrington, David Duncan, Andrew Duncan and Jim Baker resumed their match against R Battersby seven shots in arrears.

Over the next 7 ends each rink scored 4 shots so after 10 ends the Belfast men lead by 11 shots to 4. Unfortunately for the Ballymena men they could only add a single shot to their score while Belmont rink added a further 14 shots to extend their lead to 20 shots.

Both rinks won 2 of the final 4 ends, but the Braid men were well beaten on the night to leave the final score 29-11.

Steven Shields, J J Robinson, Mark Torrington and Andrew Kyle held a 4 shot lead against R Horner on rink 3 when they restarted their game and by the time they had reached the 12th end the margin had increased slightly to 6 shots.

A brace of 3’s and a count of 4 shots over the next 6 ends saw the momentum of the game change in favour of the Belmont rink as they took the lead for the first time in the game with the score board reading 21-16.

The Ballymena men levelled the game 2 ends later, but it wasn’t their night as the Belmont men scored 3 shots on the final end to win by 24 shots to 21.

James Gaston, Alistair Coleman, Nigel Robinson and Steven Coleman held a slender 1 shot lead on rink 4 when they resumed their game against D Hamilton however the Ballymena men were slow out of the blocks and with 8 ends played the Belfast men had opened up an 8 shot lead.

This was still the margin after 16 ends but the Braid men had a storming finish over the remaining 5 ends as they scored 14 shots without reply to give them an excellent 22-16 victory.

Andrew Bonnar, Graham Wilson, Sammy Allen and Marty McHugh trailed by 3 shots against S Bennett on rink 5 but the Ballymena rink were quickly in to their stride as they won the next 4 ends to take a 2 shot lead.

Belmont hit back and over the next 3 ends they picked up 5 shots to lead by 3. The Ballymena men then had a great run when they won 6 of the next 7 ends to open up a 6 shot advantage, however the Belmont rink played some great bowls over the final end to level the game at 17-17 once the regulation 21 ends had been completed.

This was another good year for Ballymena Seniors.

As mentioned they retained the NIPGL Senior League Division 1 for the first time in their history with an excellent record of P18 W14 D3 L1.

They were beaten in the final of the NIPGL Senior Cup and the only real low point of the season came in the Irish Senior Cup when they fell to a 2nd round defeat at the hands of Whitehead.

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