Success for Ballymena ladies in Provincial Towns finals day

The Provincial Towns’ Women’s Bowling Association Championships took place at Ballymena Bowling Club last week and the Ballymena club was well represented in the Championships.

Three Ballymena players made it to the semi-final stages of the singles so Ballymena were assured of at least one finalist. In the first semi-final Donna McCloy booked her place in the final at the expense of Erin Smith. Sarah Jane Curran made it an all-Ballymena final by beating D Baird (Limavady).

In the Pairs Megan Wilson and Eva Gage took on the Ballymoney pair skipped by B Logue and it was the north Antrim duo who prevailed. Earlier in the day Megan and Eva were joined by Linda McCullough in the triples where they took on their club colleagues Grace Henry, Donna McCloy and Barbara Cameron and the latter progressed in style.

Finally in the rinks Sile Garvey, Sarah Jane Curran, Donna McCloy and Jennifer Dowds took on D Baird (Limavady) and they ensured that they there would be a Ballymena representative in the rinks final.

The Triples final was the first to be played on Thursday morning with Grace Henry, Donna McCloy and Barbara Cameron taking on the Poststewart triple skipped by B O’Neill. Cameron’s triple tried their best but went down by 18 shots to 15.

The all-Ballymena Singles final took place in the early afternoon where Donna McCloy’s experience saw her cruise past the challenge of club-mate Sarah Jane Curran by 21 shots to three.

The final of rinks between Sile Garvey, Sarah Jane Curran, Donna McCloy and Jennifer Dowds and Dunluce’s A Elliott was the best final of the day. The Ballymena ladies made an excellent start when they picked up a count of 5 shots on the first end but by the time the game had reached the 12th end the Dunluce rink was back on level terms with the scores tied at 11-11. The Braid ladies then scored 4 consecutive singles however the Dunluce rink replied with 2 singles and a count of 4 shots on the 19th end to lead in the final for the first time.

The next 2 ends were tense affairs but the Ballymena rink picked up 2 singles to send the game in to an extra tie end. As the end took shape it was the Dunluce rink that lay game but the Ballymena third trailed the jack to lie 2 shots. The head never changed after this which gave the Braid ladies the title in a thrilling 19-17 victory.