Accomplished pair bag yet another title
IT took until the last bowl of the 18th and final end for the Green Island combination of Lyn Rance and Faye Cosgrove to secure the Dunedin Centre women’s pairs title on Sunday.
Progressing through to the final undefeated, the pair came up against the North East Valley pair of Karen Gordon and Vicki Robinson, who had progressed through to the knockout post section stage on aggregate despite dropping one of their three games in section play.
Gordon and Robinson then knocked out highlyregarded North East Valley club mates Joanna Cooper and Brooke Craik 2210. In the semifinal, the duo accounted for the St Clair com bination of Carolyn Crawford and Sharon McCaw 1712.
With no fewer than 37 centre titles between them, the Rance and Cosgrove combination were at short odds to comfortably add to this tally. But all four bowlers went blowforblow in most ends.
The game was locked up at 7all after 11 ends of the encounter. Then as the rain came, the Green Island pair held a tentative two shot 108 advantage after 14 ends.
A nervous restart after the rain delay saw Gordon and Robinson drop another two shots on the 15th end to trail by four shots with three ends remaining. But a sensational skipper’s effort from Robinson pulled back three shots on the 16th end. Gordon played her part with a scoring shot at the back that proved to be a jack too far for Rance and Cosgrove — the game now locked up at 12all going into the 18th and final end.
The final end went down to the wire, Cosgrove drawing the scoring shot with the final bowl of the match to hand the Green Island pair a 1312 victory.
The victory earned Cosgrove her 15th centre title and a gold star to two bars, while it was an incredible 22nd centre title for Rance.
‘‘I’ve never played a final like that,’’ Rance said afterwards.
‘‘The good news was that going into that last end there was going to be no extra end needed,’’ she said, in reference to the threatening weather.
The Green Island pair have been a combination for 23 years, having now won five pairs titles together along with numerous fours and triples titles.
Reputations counted for very little in the associated men’s pairs over the weekend, leading up to a final to be played at Outram tonight at 5.30pm, with John Latimer and Roger Barron (Fairfield) to play Darren Wolland and John Moana (Wakari).