WL avoid loss after blistering finish
West Lothian were in danger of blowing it against a winless Fife County at Methilhill but retained a glimmer of qualifying hopes in the East section of The Hamilton Trophy with a strong finish to celebrate a 119-101 victory.
Steven Fleming emerged the hero figure with the Linlithgow magician conjuring up a spectacular late run to pull an unlikely team victory out of the hat as he skipped his rink of Steven Forrest, Andy Walker Jnr, and James Speirs Jnr to a 1, 8, 3, 5, 1 finish.
That phenomenal 18 shot haul ensured personal triumph for Fleming and the rinks skipped by Andy Dunnett, Thomas Mann, and Raymond Logan contributed support wins.
The down side was the defeats suffered by Sandy McDougall, and Grant Logan.
Whitburn is this Saturday’s venue for the visit of Stirling County East and West Lothian enter that penultimate battle holding third place but four points adrift of undefeated section leaders Midlothian and two behind East Lothian in second spot.
The prospects of West Lothian making it into the top two are slim but the leaders clash in the final fixture and the outcome of that could make one of them vulnerable to a strong finish by their third placed chasers.
West Lothian will however have to improve immensely on a dicey form-line against a weakened Fife team especially as, with the exception of absent stars Neil Speirs and Scott Logan, the visitors were considered to be at full strength.
The phase scoring doesn’t flag up the real danger of defeat causing concern on the WL banking with the favourites edging the first seven-ends, 39-34, and dominating the final seven, 50-22, having been trumped 45-30 in the middle section of the game.
Fleming and his front-three served up a rock solid performance and leading from start to finish converted an 8-1 advantage into a fabulous 29-10 victory.
Dunnett came under early pressure at 10-4 down but rallied well to skip Ewan Shearer, Jamie Aitken, and Calum Logan to an 18-12 win while Mann was quickly into a positive stride to skip Jamie Edwards, Blair Mackie, and Mark Allison into a 12-4 lead before carding a narrow 23-19 triumph.
Logan (Raymond) looked to be in dire trouble at 14-5 down but rallied with a mighty count of five skipped Darren Pearce, Scott Mushet, and Gary Smith to a 19-16 win.
McDougall and his front-three of Frazer Muirhead, David Lamb, and John Aitken lost out 16-14 while Grant Logan’s rink of Drew Paterson, Jordan Pearce and Greg Logan slumped from 10-10 to a 28-16 defeat.
The semi-finals action in the Jack High Insurance WLBA Junior Open for The Fred Meikle Trophy on Monday night features Cameron Robertson of Blackburn against Grant Ramsay of East Calder at Kirkliston and Calum Logan of Kirkliston against Jordan Pearce of Kirkliston at East Calder.
Scotland’s top club championship – The Dechmont Forklift Trucks (Broxburn) Inter County Top Ten was captured by Edinburgh champions Carrick Knowe with wins over Wellington Park (Renfrewshire) then Northern of Bon Accord in the final day of play staged in splendid fashion at Eddlewood, Hamilton.