First defeat of campaign for ladies

THE top two teams in the PTWBA Senior League met at Ballymena last week with Ballymena Ladies entertaining Dunluce.

The Braid ladies were hoping to make it five wins out of five, however Dunluce has other ideas and even though the visitors had only one winning rink, it was enough to claim four of the seven points on offer after winning by two shots (64-66) overall.

The lead changed on several occasions on rink 1 where Sile Garvey, Gladys Power, Dorothy McKee and Donna McCloy took on the Dunluce rink skipped by J Sharpe.

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The Ballymena ladies won the first 3 ends to open up a 4 shot lead but the visitors hit back to win the next 7 ends to lead by 11 shots to 4. The Dunluce ladies however could only manage to win one more end and in an exciting finish it was the Ballymena ladies who came out on top by 16 shots to 12.

On rink 2 Linda McCullough, Peggy Pinkerton, Erin Smith and Sarah Jane Coleman took an early lead against A McClelland, however at the half way stage of the game the lead was only 4 shots.

The Braid ladies hit a purple patch over the next 8 ends as they outscored their opponents by 10 shots to 2 and even though they lost the last end it could not stop the Ballymena rink from recording a fine 18-8 victory.

Jean Rainey, Kathleen Hoey, Pat Allen and Jennifer Dowds certainly had an interesting game against P Calvin on rink 3. There was nothing in the game after 12 ends with the Ballymena ladies holding a slender 1 shot lead at this stage.

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Counts of 4 and 3 over the next few ends saw the visitors go in to the last end with a 5 shot advantage, but in an amazing climax it was the Ballymena rink who claimed victory when they lifted a count of 7 shots to leave the final score 20 shots to 18 in favour of the home rink.

On rink 4 Jennie McCready, Marie Houston, Iris Millar and Barbara Cameron where up against a very experienced Dunluce rink skipped by A Elliott on rink 4.

The Ballymena rink found it tough going and could only manage to win one of the first eight ends with the score reading 14-2 in favour of the visitors.

Six ends later the Braid ladies seemed to have steadied the ship and had recovered to only trail by 6 shots, but in a disappointing finish they conceded 12 shots over the last four ends to end up on the wrong side of a 28-10 score line.

This week the ladies make the short trip to Ballymoney.

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