BOWLS (KWWIBA)

Laurences Halt League Leaders Gallop: This was a journey across county boundaries for the Baltinglass/Kiltegan club to take on St. Laurences in this Division 2 bowling league on Monday, November 6, in the St. Laurence’s GAA Pavilion.

Baltinglass, who were relegated from Division 1 last year, have in the meantime joined forces with players from the Kiltegan area, thus the name change to Baltinglass/Kiltegan.

A difficult task for the travelling team, but nevertheless they would be confident of taking away some points.

Being top of the table and six points clear of the home team going into this game they would be expecting to hold that margin and maybe even extend it further.

This venue is never an easy fixture for away teams, as St. Laurence’s are one of the most difficult sides to play against in their own territory, as a lot of teams have found to their cost.

Mountain to climb: On Mat 1 it was a dream start for the home side, scoring five on the first end before the visitors had time to draw their breath.

This quick score would be a warning to their opponents as the home side’s intent on laying down a marker.

This early and huge score wouldn’t be such a major disaster with fourteen ends still to play, but it meant that the Baltinglass/ Kiltegan side would be under a lot of pressure to try and get into the game.

Unfazed the visitors on the second end scored two to leave just three between the sides.

St. Laurence’s were not in a generous mood and in the next three ends had increased their lead to seven (9/2).

At this stage it didn’t look very promising for the visitors, instead of a hill to climb it looked more like a mountain to climb. They weren’t giving up without a fight, and fought back, and by the eight end the margin was down to three scores for the second time.

The home side again pushed the margin to five, but within a couple of ends the gap was once again reduced to three.

This was as good as it got for the visitors, for on the last four ends the sides traded scores and there was still a difference of three at the finish, St. Laurence’s the victors on a scoreline of 15/12.

St. Laurence’s: Kay Kirby, Jason Smith, Charlie O’Rourke and Paddy Murphy.

Baltinglass/Kiltegan: Michael Zaidel, Colin Jackson, Joey Fagan and John Kehoe.

Mat 2: The first six ends was a close enough contest, with the score standing at 6/2 in favour of the home side. But from thereon it was all one-way traffic as St. Laurence’s completely took over and did an absolute demolition job on the visitors.

Baltinglass/Kiltegan were unfortunate to run into a side that produced as near a perfect performance on the night as one is likely to get in sport. Once the home side took over there was no way back for the visitors, try as they might.

St. Laurence’s completely dismantled their opponents with a merciless and precision display of brilliant bowling to win convincingly