Seniors back in league contention as other results go in their favour

The Braid men picked up a maximum 7 points on Tuesday night when Ewarts were the visitors and with Dunbarton dropping points away at Belmont they now have a mathematical chance of winning the league for a fourth successive time.

Ballymena Seniors (99) Ewarts (56)

Michael Wilson, David Duncan, Mark Torrington and Andi Duncan dropped a single on the first end against H Magee, but from then it was mostly one way traffic as the Ballymena rink took control of the game.

Eight shots over the next 3 ends put Duncan’s men in the ascendency and consecutive counts of 4 shots on the 10th and 11th ends made sure that there was only ever going to be one winner in this contest.

The Ballymena rink continued to have the upper hand for the remainder of the game and they finished up a good nights work with a count of 5 shots on the 19th end to run out winners by 33 shots to 12.

James Gaston, Graham Wilson, Steven Falls and Nigel Robinson found themselves trailing by 3 shots after only 2 ends in their game against A Truick however they won 6 of the next 7 ends to open up a 5 shot advantage.

Seven singles were scored over the next 7 ends and at the end of this period of play the Braid advantage was up to 6 shots.

With 5 ends remaining it looked as though the Ballymena men were well on their way to victory however the visitors had other ideas.

The Ewarts rink picked up 8 shots over the next 3 ends to lead by 2 shots with only 2 shots to play however the Braid rink picked up a single on the 20th end to set up a tense finale.

With half of the final end played the Ballymena 3rd played a great bowl to ditch the jack to lie at least one shot and possibly 2 shots.

The head remained unchanged for the remainder of the end and after a close measure Robinson’s men claimed 2 shots they required to record a hard fought 16-15 victory.

Steven Shields, Sammy Allen, Andrew Morrison and Andy Kyle made the early running in their game against J Templeton on rink 3 and some superb play saw them open up a 14-2 lead after 8 ends.

The visitors then had their best period of the game when they won the next 7 ends however the Braid men restricted the damage to 8 shots and with 6 ends now remaining the deficit had been cut to only 4 shots.

Kyle’s rink got themselves back on track when they picked up 3 shots on the 16th end and a further count of 3 shots two ends later saw the Ballymena rink home with the final score 22-12.

J R Nicholl, Joe McKeown, Alistair Coleman and Steven Coleman made a nightmare start on rink 4 against R McCLean and with 6 ends played it was not looking good as the visitors led by 11 shots to 0.

Six shots over the next 2 ends got the Ballymena men up and running and by the time 13 ends had been completed the margin was down to only 4 shots.

The next end proved to be the turning point of the game as the Braid men picked up a maximum count of 8 shots which put them in the lead for the first time in the match.

The Ewarts rink never really recovered from this set back and it was the Ballymena men who finished strongly when they outscored their opponents by 11 shots to 4 to record a fine 28-17 win.

Ballymena Seniors have no match this Saturday and they are next in action on Monday 4th August when they travel to Willowfield and the next night they are also on their travels when they visit Forth River.