Long time between titles for veterans
Sharon Sims struggled to remember the last time she won a Manawatu¯ centre title.
The Manawatu¯ legend, along with Mark Noble, won the mixed pairs 2x4x2 title at Northern on Monday, when they beat Mere Fryer and Scotty Mcgavin 14-10 in the final.
Sims said she had won 24 or 25 centre titles and she thought it had been more than six years since she last won one. Coincidentally, she believed the last title she won was the mixed pairs.
‘‘We’ve lost a lot of finals,’’ she said, laughing, after the win.
It was Noble’s eighth Manawatu¯ title.
Sims, who has been a New Zealand coach and selector, isn’t acting as a selector this season, so she was looking forward to playing more this summer. She is heading to Hong Kong at the start of next month as a coach with a couple of pairs teams and had put her name into the hat as a player for the new Bowls 3Five competition.
Fryer and Mcgavin, who won the title in 2016, took an early 2-0 lead in the final, but Sims and Noble scored on three consecutive ends to take an 8-2 lead after five ends.
Fryer and Mcgavin chipped away at the lead and closed the gap to 11-9, but Sims and Noble picked up two shots on the 13th end and another on the last end to seal the game. ‘‘It was pretty close,’’ Sims said. ‘‘We got a couple of threes in the early stages and we got a little bit of a lead.
‘‘Then for most of the second half of the match it was pretty close. ‘‘
She said with a couple of ends to go they were in trouble, but they stayed calm and played with confidence.
The only match Mcgavin and Sims lost was to Fryer and Mcgavin, 15-10 in section play. They won the other four matches in their section.
Noble and Sims beat Erika Goldsworthy and Stephen Love 13-11 in the semifinal, Chris Avery and Gary Heald 16-12 in the quarterfinal and Richard Corbett and Liz Corbett 29-6 in the first round of post-section play.
Fryer and Mcgavin won all four games in their section.
In the first round of post-section play they beat Honey Giblett and Bevan Burt 15-14, then beat Bronwyn Kennard and Dave Newell 19-17 in the quarterfinal and Chris Quinn and Des Meyer 15-8 in the semifinal.
The next centre event is the open fours at the end of next month.