Top four locked in for Div 1 finals

IF last week's results didn’t seal the deal, yesterday’s pennant bowls results certainly locked in the division one top four two weeks early.

Ocean Grove 1, Torquay, Queenscliff and City of Geelong will contest the finals in March. These sides have dominated the top four since Round 9, in the same order, despite a few closes calls in the past seven matches.

City of Geelong might be on the bottom finals rung but it has thrown down the gauntlet after winning its first match in Round 5.

It lost again to Ocean Grove the following week, but has won seven of its past 10 games and looms as a solid threat at the business end of the season.

Despite facing a tricky fixture against RSL on the synthetic in windy conditions yesterday, it flexed its muscles for a clean-sweep 31-shot win.

City spokesperson Kerry Gooley was impressed with the performance of the three rinks.

Jackie McLaren had a close game all day against Faye Weeks. When it came to the last end the rink was down two shots and McLaren played a shot to get a four for the side to make it a full complement of rinks up on the day.

Veronica Kelly’s rink had best win of the day, getting up over Lynette Sutton by 15 shots, while Kerry Gooley’s rink came back from being down at lunch to win by 11.

Gooley was very excited about the prospect of finals and said that they have some players coming back from injury — including Lorraine Myers — which will boost the side for the finals.

Third-placed Queenscliff (166 points) crushed Leopold by 45 shots and holds an outside hope of a double chance if either Ocean Grove 1 (191) or Torquay (185) makes a mess of things next week as the top two meet in the last round.