Champions finish season in style

Londonderry (61)

BALLYMENA Ladies who had already been crowned PTWBA Senior League champions travelled to Londonderry last week to complete their league fixtures for 2010. They too could have been excused from taking their foot off the gas with the title already in the bag, however the Braid ladies continued their fine form with a comfortable win.

Jennie McCready, Barbara Burnett, Iris Millar and Barbara Cameron found the going tough against J McClure on rink 1. The Ballymena ladies scored 2 singles over the first 2 ends, however the home rink replied with 13 shots over the next 4 ends. The visitors recovered a little over the next 5 ends to trail by 15 shots to 9, but worse was still to come as the Londonderry ladies won 5 of the last 7 ends during which they outscored the Braid rink by 16 shots to 2 to leave the final score 31-11 in favour of home rink.

Linda McCullough, Peggy Pinkerton, Erin Smith and Sarah Jane Coleman made a storming start against M Harrison on rink 2. The Ballymena ladies won the first 8 ends to lead by a massive 18 shots. The remainder of the game was a much closer affair, but the Londonderry ladies never really recovered from their poor start as the Braid rink went on to record a fine 30 shots to 8 victory.

Ballymena were only able to field 3 players on rink 3 where Megan Wilson, Dorothy McKee and Sile Garvey took on A Moore. This was a close game and there was never more than 5 shots during the whole of the game. Scores were level after 9 ends with the scoreboard reading 11-11. The home rink then won the next 3 ends to open up a 5 shot lead but the Ballymena ladies fought back and with the help of scores of 1,2 over the last 2 ends the Braid ladies drew level at 18-18. Unfortunately as the Ballymena rink only had 3 players they had to forfeit a quarter of their score to leave the home rink victorious by 18 shots to 13.5.

There was a very one sided game on rink 4 where Jean Rainey, Kathleen Hoey, Pat Allen and Jennifer Dowds were drawn against the Londonderry rink skipped by H Taylor. The Ballymena ladies were in great form and dominated the game right from the start. The home rink could only score 4 single shots over the whole of the game as the Braid went on to record an impressive 29-4 victory.

This year’s PTWBA Senior League campaign started off with 4 straight wins against Limavady (A), Coleraine (H), Portstewart (A) and Magherafelt (H) however this run was brought to an end when the ladies suffered a narrow defeat against Dunluce (H).

This was their only defeat before the July break with further wins recorded against Ballymoney (A), Londonderry (H), Limavady (H) and Coleraine (A). The first game after the break saw the ladies suffer their second defeat when they took on Portstewart at home , however wins against Magherafelt (A) Dunluce (A) and Ballymoney (H) sealed the title win a game to spare.