Early exit for Taranaki bowlers

Both the men and women’s Taranaki teams exited at the quarterfinals stage of the Undereights intercentre Bowls New Zealand contest in Christchurch on Sunday.

The men were ousted 3-0 by Dunedin and the women were eliminated by the same score by North Harbour.

While the defeats were not necessarily surprising, the whitewash was, after both Revital Ferti- liser Taranaki sides had done very well during section play. The men topped its pool while the women easily qualified second in its group.

Dave Wilson led the way for the men, winning all four of his singles games over Friday and Saturday.

But he didn’t reproduce that form at the start of his quarterfinal, against Ray Webster, the 2014 Dunedin champion-ofchampions singles winner, trailing 19-7.

He stormed home late, but time was against him, losing 14-20.

The two-and-a-quarter-hours time limit also denied the men’s fours of Brendan Anderson, Danny O’Sullivan, Kelly Hill and Steve Walker.

With a number of killed ends, the score ended somewhat farcically at 8-4 against them.

Walker’s team had won three from four in section play.

The pair of Steve Sabine and Jordan Linn, after two wins in section play, lost 16-12 to Dunedin.

In the women’s event, Sue Winter put in a strong showing, winning three games from four from the opening two days.

But it was a different proposition in the quarterfinals, Winter bowing 21-4 to Paris Baker.

The pair of Bari Oliver and Cheryll Sharrock, who also won three in section play, went down 19-9 to North Harbour.

Susan Cottam’s four of June Phelan, Lesley Te Awa and Frances Busby had a close match in the quarterfinals, but lost 13-10.

They had one win, one draw and two losses in the earlier rounds.