Seniors back in groove after opening defeat

David Torrington, Andrew Bonnar, Andrew Duncan and Jim Baker found themselves 7 shots to 3 down after 5 ends against G McGarry, however scores of 4,4 and 7 propelled the visitors into a decisive 11 shot lead.

The Ballymena men built up some very good heads during the course of the game and had it not have been for the PSNI skip burning 3 ends, the Ballymena men would have won by a very large margin. In the end Baker's men went on to win by comfortably by 31 shots to 16.

The closest game of the day was played on Rink 2 where Steven Shields, Graham Wilson, Andrew Morrison and Nigel Robinson took on K McGarry.

The visitors did not make the best of starts, conceding counts of 4 and 3 on the first two ends, however when Robinson ditched the jack on the fifth end for a count of 5, the Ballymena men were well and truly back in the game.

After 15 ends the PSNI rink held a 2 shot lead but counts of 2,3 and 6 saw the visitors take control of the game and even though the home rink won the remaining ends it could not stop the Braid men from recording a hard fought 25-21 victory.

The scores were level on rink 2 after 5 ends where Steven Falls, JR Nicholl, Jonathan Millar and Steven Coleman were drawn against P Franks.

The next seven ends however belonged to the Ballymena rink as they scored 12 shots without reply. The home rink never recovered from this spell and were never really in a position to put Coleman's men under any sort of pressure and it was no surprise that the final score read 27-14 in favour of the visiting rink.

Out on rink 4 David Duncan, Mark Torrington and Sammy Allen welcomed Andrew Kyle back at third and they found themselves up against the PSNI rink skipped by J McKee.

The Ballymena men were in great form and such was the dominance of the visiting rink, that this game was all but over after 13 ends. During this period the Braid quartet had restricted the opposition to only 2 single shots while they in turn had amassed 25 shots.

The remainder of the game was more even with the Ballymena men going on to record an emphatic 37-9 victory.

This Saturday is the first round of the Irish Bowling Association Senior Cup and Ballymena Seniors have a first round home tie against Coleraine and then on Tuesday night it is back to the League campaign with a home match against Larne.