County stumble against Stirling
West Lothian’s bid to make it four wins in a row in the Scottish Cities and Counties Championship for The Hamilton Trophy ended in a 19-shot defeat ( 102- 121) by Stirling County East at Bonnybridge.
The threat level posed by SCE had been flagged up by their shock away win over East Lothian and that outcome was proved to be no fluke as they put WL to the sword on four of the six rinks.
Wins on the rinks skipped by Andy Dunnett and Neil Speirs were not enough to stem the tide that engulfed Thomas Mann, Grant Logan, Steven Fleming and Raymond Logan in damaging defeats.
There was a grain of aftermatch relief with the news that fellow section leaders Edinburgh and Leith had crashed to an 18-shot defeat at home to West Fife but East Lothian and Midlothian came menacingly back into the picture with wins over Fife (away) and Borders (home) respectively.
Deans is the home venue for this Saturday’s crunch match against Edinburgh and Leith and the battle for supremacy could develop into an epic encounter, with both teams driven by a desire to stay in contention for a toptwo qualifying place.
Team manager Gordon Logan has decided to promote Jordan Pearce (Kirkliston) and Paul Sweeney (Newbridge) to form a new front end for Greg Logan and Steven Fleming at the expense of Frazer Muirhead and Andi Gray.
Play at Bonnybridge was interrupted by episodes of thunder and lightning that proved to be detrimental to the WL team effort but not Andy Dunnett, who skipped Ewan Shearer, Scott Logan and Calum Logan to an early lead of 14- 1 then stayed on well to score a 3017 win.
Speirs showed promise of giving strong support when skipping Steven Forrest, Mark Allison and Bryan Cooper into a 15-7 lead after 14 ends but were then hard-pressed to deliver a 17-16 win.
Mann only managed to count at eight ends and in company with Calum Black, Gary Orr, and Gary Smith suffered a 26-13 defeat.
Grant Logan and his front three of Jamie Edwards, Blair Mackie and James Speirs were also restricted to counting at eight of their 21 ends as they lost 25-12.
The singles line-up for the quarter-finals of the Scottish District Championships in West Lothian is: Ratho v Uphall Station, Oakbank v Stoneyburn, West Calder v Linlithgow, Buchan Park v Newbridge.
This week’s results were: Ratho 21 Armadale 20; Uphall Station 21 Kinneil 13; Oakbank 21 Bridgeness 15; West Calder 21 Harrysmuir 18; Linlithgow 21 Bathgate 17; Buchan Park 21 Broxburn 13; Newbridge 21 Polbeth 6.