Ballymena ladies help PTWBA retain title

Ballymena Bowling Club was honoured last weekend when they hosted the Ladies Inter Association Series on Friday afternoon and Saturday.
Ballymena ladies Jennifer Dowds, Sile Gavey, Donna McClay, Megan Wilson, Barbara Cameron, Jacqueline Jones and Sarah-Jane Coleman ready at Ballymena Bowling Club on Saturday for the Ladies Inter Association series. INBT 32-926HBallymena ladies Jennifer Dowds, Sile Gavey, Donna McClay, Megan Wilson, Barbara Cameron, Jacqueline Jones and Sarah-Jane Coleman ready at Ballymena Bowling Club on Saturday for the Ladies Inter Association series. INBT 32-926H
Ballymena ladies Jennifer Dowds, Sile Gavey, Donna McClay, Megan Wilson, Barbara Cameron, Jacqueline Jones and Sarah-Jane Coleman ready at Ballymena Bowling Club on Saturday for the Ladies Inter Association series. INBT 32-926H

Ballymena ladies play in the Provincial Towns Woman’s Bowling League (PTWBA) and they had no less than 7 players - Barbara Cameron, Sarah Jane Coleman, Jennifer Dowds, Sile Garvey, Jacqueline Jones, Donna McCloy and Megan Wilson - in the Provincial Towns team.

In the first game on Friday PTWBA took on the Northern Ireland Woman’s Private Greens League (NIWPGL). The PTWBA (7pts) finished up on 3 rinks up, lost 2 and drew 1 but the NIWPGL (9pts) claimed the majority of the points when they claimed the overall score. In the other game Northern Ireland Woman’s Bowling League (NIWBA) beat Ladies Bowling League of Ireland (LBLI).

On Saturday morning the PTWBA (13pts) easily beat LBLI (3pts) with 4 rink wins and a draw. On the top green NIWPGL beat NIWBA. After the 2 sets of games had been played the PTWBA and NIPGL were level on 20pts.

The final round of games took place on Saturday afternoon and on the face of it the NIWPGL appeared to be favourites as they took on the LBLI who has lost both their games. The PTWBA on the other hand took on NIWBA who still had an outside chance of the title. Both the NIWPGL and PTWBA established early leads in their games and it would be a matter of how many rink victories each association could manage and in a tense finish it was the PTWBA who won the series when they finished with 5 rink wins to retain the title while the NIWPGL could only finish with 4.

PGL CHAMPIONSHIPS

In this year’s championships at Old Bleach. Ballymena were represented in 2 of the finals.

In the Open Pairs Jim Baker and Steven Shields retained their title by beating S & M Trainor (Dunbarton) by 22 shots to 15, after scoring eight shots over the closing ends.

Alistair Coleman was also looking to successfully retain his Under 25 Singles title and this year he was up against Chris Mullan (Forth River). Unfortunately for the Ballymena man he never settled down in to his usual game and Mullan won by 21 shots to 13.

Related topics: