Howrah dominates for third title in a row
A report for The Mercury by Peter Kirby
Howrah continued its dominance of Bowls South’s Thursday Women’s Division 1 Pennant at Buckingham on Tuesday, winning the pennant for the third year in succession, defeating a determined Kingborough who were in with a chance of claiming a memorable victory until the final ends.
With 8 ends to play, both sides were level on 49 shots each, but a surge from Howrah moved them ten shots ahead by the sixtieth end. While Kingborough was able to reduce the margin, Howrah hung on to win by four shots, 60-56.
While Kingborough won on two of the three rinks, Howrah’s Rosie Geeves and her team of Lynne McDougall, Lynne Page and Ros Jones made light work of a tough ditch rink to win seventeen of the twenty-one ends played against the Kingborough rink of Leonie Price.
McDougall led with precision for Geeves, setting up challenging heads for Price’s team, who had difficulty gauging grass and weight. Even when Price was in a position to win an end, Geeves found a way to convert the head to her advantage, either by a well-placed weighted shot or by an excellent draw shot.
Page and Jones provided strong support for their skip, also, enabling Geeves to go on to win the contest by a massive 27 shots, 32-5, and seal the win for Howrah.
Kingborough’s Kerrie Lane again played to a high standard, well-supported by her lead, Yvonne Duffy, Louise Wallace at two, and three Greta Murray, enabling her to lead her Howrah opponent, Denise Tanner, by as much as seventeen shots after fifteen ends.
Tanner staged a fightback, winning each of the final six ends to pick up eight shots, and although Lane won the match, 23-14, Tanner had shifted the momentum Howrah’s way and contributed most to her side’s overall victory.
Maddie Johnston won five of the first seven ends in her match with Howrah’s Charon Foster to stablish a five-shot lead. Foster fought back to get to within one shot, but a six on the thirteenth end moved Johnston eight shots clear.
Except for conceding a three on the nineteenth end to Foster, Johnston was able to restrict Foster’s end wins to single shot gains. Johnston picked up seven shots over the final two ends to move Kingborough within sight of victory, winning her match, 28-14, but not enough to wrench the win from Howrah.
In the other Grand Finals:
- Orford defeated Sandy Bay in Division 2,
- Beltana won the Division 3 Pennant against North Hobart, and
- Royal Hobart was successful against Buckingham in Division 4.