Battling performance sees Junior Park through

BALLYMENA Junior Park entertained North Down in the second round of the IBA Junior Cup last Saturday. Each team had two rink wins however it was the Ballymena men who claimed overall victory by a margin of seven shots (80-73).
By The Newsroom
Published 24th May 2010, 09:51 BST
Updated 24th May 2010, 12:35 BST

On rink 1 Sammy Small, Joe McKernan, Alan O’Loan and Alex Wilson took on the North Down rink skipped by F Tyson.

Scores were level after 6 ends with the scoreboard reading 6-6, however it was the visitors who had the better of the remaining ends when the outscored the Braid rink by 16 shots to 7 as they recorded a 22-13 victory.

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On rink 2 Sammy Rainey, Jimmy Alexander, Jimmy Shields and Dessie Shaw made a slow start against D Matchett and after 6 ends they found themselves trailing by 8 shots to 2. Ten ends later the visitors were still out in front by 22 shots to 6.

With the overall score across all four rinks quite close it was important that the Ballymena rink win as many of the remaining ends as they could and this is just what happened.

The Braid men dug deep and won the last 5 ends, scoring 7 shots without reply to reduce the deficit to 22-13.

The big Ballymena winners of the day were on rink 3 where Joe Kyle, Alan McCombe, Liam Lyness and Billy Scullion took on R Donalsdon.

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It was actually the visitors who made the better start as they opened up a 5 shot lead after 3 ends however a count of 5 shots on the next end saw the Ballymena men open their account and draw level.

This was just what the doctor ordered and the Braid rink never looked back scoring two further counts of five shots on their way to a very impressive 32-13 victory.

The Ballymena rink of Eddie Leckey, Tommy Glass, Davy Cupples and John Greer made a great start against N Edmonson out on rink 4 winning the first 8 ends to open up a 14 shot lead. The visitors then hit back and with the help of a count of 5 shots on the eleventh end they were able to reduce the arrears to 6 shots after 16 ends but that was a close as the visitors got.

Both rinks scored 4 shots each over the remaining ends to leave the score 22-16 in favour of the Ballymena rink.

Ballymena Junior Park entertain Comber tonight (Tuesday) and then on Thursday they have a home tie in the NIPGL Junior Cup when Cliftonville are the visitors.

Related topics:Ballymena