Botanic clinch title for fourth year on the trot

THE only match last weekend in the West Lancs and Sefton Junior Bowling League was the visit of Burscough Warriors to the Botanic Gardens, Southport, where the Botanic Bandits were hoping for a home win.

The surprise news from the previous weekend was that the Botanic team’s biggest rivals for the 2016 title, Scarisbrick Saracens had only managed to draw their last two games.

As a result the Botanic Bandits went into their match on Saturday knowing that a home win would see them win the 2016 league title, despite having another match still to play.

The outcome was a 4-2 win for the Churchtown team which secured for the Botanic Bandits their fourth League title in successive years.

The first singles game was between Botanic’s Matthew Greenwood (unbeaten so far this season) and Burscough’s top player Jessica Hodge.

Matthew was on good form and Jess had no answer to his quality bowling which resulted in him winning 21-09.

In the second singles Alicia Gregson (Warriors) started well and surprised Luke Dawes (Bandits) by going into an 11-6 lead after six ends.

Luke fought back but Alicia was still in front at 15-12. Luke continued to recover from his bad start and took the lead at 17-15. From here the game swung in Luke’s favour and he took the game 21-16.

In the third singles the result was never in doubt with young Connor Peake (Bandits) leading throughout and eventually beating Burcough’s Elise Mills 21-12.

The star of the match and the player who made it four singles wins and clinched the match for the Botanic Bandits was 13-year-old Emily Clare.

Her opponent was Burscough’s Laura Byork, who, after seven ends was beating Emily 12-6.

However, that proved to be the turning point as Emily suddenly found her best form and from 6-12 down she won the next 10 ends to take the game 21-12.

A tremendous comeback which ensured that the Botanic Bandits won the match and secured the two points to win the Junior League for the fourth successive year.

Although they lost the match, the Burscough Warriors took some consolation from it with their players winning both of the doubles games.

Alicia Gregson and Laura Byork beat Ellie McNeill and Lewis Rose 21-18 and Jess Hodge and Elise Mills beat Harry Prescott and Josh Rimmer by the same score.