BOWLS: Five county indoor titles for Spalding area players
A CRACKING county finals weekend for players from the Spalding area brought five titles.
Some of the leading players in the country were at Stamford IBC including current England internationals Billy Jackson, Amy Monkhouse and Graham Smith (Spalding IBC captain).
There were also several promising youngsters trying to follow talented Spalding player Annalisa Bellamy into the England Under-25 squad.
There was plenty to celebrate for local players. Among the winners were:
men's pairs – Richard Aves and Darren Adcock (Long Sutton)
men's triples – Martin Spencer, Paul Simpson and Graham Smith (Spalding)
ladies' fours – Gloria Haney, Val Bowker, Barbara Hurst and Margaret Dark (Spalding)
ladies' singles – Annalisa Bellamy (Spalding)
ladies' under-25s – Annalisa Bellamy (Spalding)
Aves and Adcock were in top form in the pairs and raced to a 17-3 lead and, although Billy Jackson and Danny Brown pegged them back, the Long Sutton duo held on to win by three shots.
Meanwhile there were narrow defeats for Spalding's Rebecca Allen and Gloria Haney in the ladies' pairs (19-18) and Smith, Simpson, Spencer and Simon Lilley in the men's fours.
The Spalding rink held game until the final bowl, Lincoln B skip Geoff Plaskitt drawing shot for a 21-18 win.
Jackson, currently ranked at number eight in the world, was involved in three finals but, despite providing some of the most exciting play of the day, went away empty-handed.
Smith's Spalding team made up for their disappointment in the fours and added to Jackson's misery by beating him in the triples after an extremely close game.
Jackson's final match, the men's singles against Boston's Martin Tomlin, always promised to be a thriller and the crowd were treated to some top bowling.
Tomlin, trailing by 13 shots to five, seemed to be out of the running, but fought back brilliantly to 14-14.
From then on both players hit top form and went into the last end with the game tied at 20-20.
Jackson killed the end once and the lead changed four times before Tomlin produced the shot of the day with his last bowl to win by one.
One of the most encouraging aspects was the standard of bowling from the younger players with Bellamy leading the way.
As expected, she won her Under-25 final, but then went on to beat experienced international Monkhouse in the senior singles by a convincing 14 shots.
Jonathan West, from Boston, also picked up two titles, winning the Under-18 singles and the mixed pairs.
The full article contains 426 words and appears in Spalding Guardian newspaper.
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Last Updated:
23 April 2008 5:01 PM
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Source:
Spalding Guardian
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Location:
Spalding
