OG wins, Highton holds on
OCEAN Grove (1) held off a strong challenge from Leopold to record a one-shot win and consolidate second place going into next week’s first round of Division 1 finals.
Qualifying and elimination finals will be played next Tuesday with Queenscliff (1st) up against Ocean Grove (1) (2nd) and Torquay (3rd) to play Highton (4th), both at Geelong Cement greens.
Going into yesterday’s final home and away round there was still hope for fifth placed Leopold (158) and sixth placed City of Geelong (155) to make the top four.
Leopold faced the hard task of beating second placed Ocean Grove (1) on the Grove green.
Over the course of the 75 ends it was really bowl-forbowl as both teams exerted as much pressure as possible.
At the end of the day Ocean Grove won by a solitary shot to end Leopold’s finals chances.
On a positive for Leopold the performance from its No.1 rink skippered by Nicole Shortis was encouraging.
Over the season the rink played 17 matches, winning 15 and drawing one for a 31-point total and a top shot difference of 158 bowls.
City of Geelong lost out in its challenge for a top four position going down to third placed Torquay by 13-shots in a solid display of bowls.
The big battle between two of the competition’s top skips saw the Alan Sampson rink score a one-shot win over the Jacqueline McLaren rink.
Queenscliff held top spot with a convincing 33-shot win over Geelong Cement with the Kevin Thompson rink taking a classic 30-shot win over the Angela Patterson rink.
Geelong Cement joins Portarlington in the bottom two relegation positions.
In Division 2, Bannockburn turned out to be the biggest losers, firstly being beaten by Belmont, and sliding from third to fifth on the ladder as a result.
Geelong RSL bowled tightly to record a two-shot win over Bell Post Hill and move to third while the Belmont win saw it slip into fourth.
This means St Leonards will play Geelong next Tuesday in the qualifying final and Geelong RSL will face off against Belmont.
Both finals will be played at Clifton Springs.
St Leonards proved its finals credentials with a five-shot away win over Torquay. The competition’s leading rink skippered by Dean McNeill took the honours on the day with a 12-shot win over the Janice Pekin rink.
Geelong finished on a high following its 26-shot win over Point Lonsdale. The green was running beautifully with the Colin Sturgess rink taking full advantage with a top 13-shot rink win over Jennifer Gleeson.
Bannockburn was the unlucky side for the season, going down in its final outing by 14 shots and finishing equal on points but down on shots difference to Belmont by a convincing 69-shots.
Other midweek finals will be played at the following locations: Division 3: Belmont, Division 4: Portarlington, Division 5: Leopold, Division 6: Torquay, Divsion 7: Clifton Springs, Division 8: Leopold.