Grove quick to dominate
Leopold presses, but Queenscliff stays unbeaten
OCEAN Grove bounced back from its Round 4 defeat to crush Portarlington by 41shots and consolidate second place on the GBR Midweek Pennant ladder.
Playing on its home green that was running at 15 seconds, Ocean Grove team started well and with three of its rinks leading at the break was full of confidence.
The Faye Richardson rink was 13-1 followed by the Matt Flapper rink on 9-2 and Lorraine Kirk on 12-4.
At this stage, consolidation was what Grove needed. The rink of Elaine Price (lead), Pat Virtue (second), Steve Parry (third) and Richardson (skip) held well, moving to a 36-20 win that the other two leading rinks fed off in order to take a clean sweep and a valuable plus 41-shot injection into its percentage.
It sets up Ocean Grove for its next challenge against Lara in round six.
Queenscliff continued its unbeaten run but was pushed by Leopold.
In the closely fought match it was again the work of the competition’s leading rink of Dianne Price (lead), Glen Byers (second), Dianne Roberts (third) and Henry Dahler (skip) that paved the way with its 10-shot win over the Graeme Sharp rink.
This Dahler-skipped rink has won five from five with a shot difference of plus 78 and 10 points, making it the only unbeaten rink in the competition this season.
Torquay kept in touch with the top two with a 25-shot win over Ocean Grove (2) on the nice running green at Fisherman’s Beach.
Its rinks took a clean sweep by nine, eight and eight shots.
The Torquay leading skip Alan Sampson continued his top form, now sitting on eight points and a plus 53-shot difference.
City of Geelong moved into fourth place after its 16-0 (38shot) clean sweep over Lara on its Drumcondra green.
The outstanding bowling on the day saw the Gerry Dean rink of Swen Pettig (lead), Shirley Lane (second) and Jennifer McLean (third) take the rink by 25 shots — 36-9.
Its combined teamwork was an excellent motive for the other CoG rinks to work off in order to take the maximum match points.
Highton made it clean sweep number four of the day as it defeated Geelong Cement by 21 shots across the three rinks and 75 ends.
The pattern was similar to other matches with the one rink setting a fine example for the others to follow. Ray McCorkell skipped his rink of Lorraine Finlay, Anne Fox and Ian Anderson very well as it recorded a 14-shot win over the Ange Patterson rink from Cement.
Round 6 will see Queenscliff (1st) welcome Torquay (3rd) to the Ripview green while Ocean Grove 2 (5th) faces an important match against Highton (6th) on the nice running Grove green.
Other matches see Portarlington (10th) try to find its first win of the season against Leopold (7th), Lara v Ocean Grove 1 and City of Geelong plays Geelong Cement.
In Division 2, Geelong fell from favour, going down for its first loss of the season at the hands of Clifton Springs by a close seven shots. Geelong RSL pushed back into a top five-position following its fine clean sweep (35-shot) demolition of Highton (2).
The Lynette Sutton rink of Neil Vivian (lead), Gerry Purcell (second), Joan Averay (third) and Lynette Sutton (skip) provided significant impetus with its 17-shot win over the Lois Sinclair rink.
St Leonards was too strong for Point Lonsdale, recording a savage 51-shot clean sweep victory.
The top-scoring rink of the day throughout all levels of competition was the St Leonards rink of Ron Pickett, Fred Aston, Barry Culph and skip Tony Vella posting a 45-15 win over the Marion Walton rink from Point Lonsdale.
Round 6 will see the match of the round between Bannockburn (2nd) and Geelong (3rd) played at the Geelong Bowls club while Belmont plays Point Lonsdale; Geelong RSL v Clifton Springs, Bell Post Hill v St Leonards and Torquay v Highton.