Fired up Borders KOWest Lothian
West Lothian’s campaign in the Cities and Counties Championship has ended in grief with an inglorious performance away to Borders resulting in a disappointing 126-94 defeat.
The high price paid for a costly performance that lacked passion and aggression was failure to clinch one of the top two places in the East section that would have taken West Lothian into the last eight knockout stage of the event.
West Lothian entered the final match of the section campaign holding second place to East Lothian; but only one point ahead of Borders meaning the clash at Gordon was a winner-take-all one to reach the quarter-finals.
With the stakes therefore extremely high it was expected the star-studded West Lothian team would find an extra gear to accelerate them to victory over a Border opposition often frustrated by inconsistency.
But it was Borders that produced a lion- hearted team effort and, fired up by the long- suffering home support, cheered a victory that was richly deserved.
West Lothian were rocked back onto their heels by an opening onslaught that saw Borders zip into a 14 shot lead (23-9) after three ends and although taking a long time to enter a real comfort zone their supremacy endured from start to finish.
Borders have long been admired and respected as exciting contributors to the reputation of the East being the most competitive of the four national sections, but they seldom make the top two so no one will begrudge them their 2016 chance of being in the mix to grab what would be their first ever Hamilton Trophy title glory.
Blushes of West Lothian suffering defeat on all six rinks were spared by the contribution of Grant Logan who picked up from 7-4 down and included two mighty counts of five as he skipped Drew Paterson, David Lamb, and Mark Allison to a 28-21 win over Stuart White.
Borders did, however, inflict the pain of defeat on the rinks skipped by Raymond Logan, Sandy McDougall, Steven Fleming, Andy Dunnett, and Thomas Mann.
Mann and his front-three of Andy Semple, Greg Baldry, and John Aitken came against the collar early doors and only managed to count at eight of the 21 ends as they suffered a punishing 25-10 defeat.
Dunnett and his rink of Ewan Shearer, Jordan Pearce, and Walter McDougall were also on the end of a punishing double figure defeat, losing 27-15.
McDougall, meanwhile lost 19-14 to Graeme Forsyth, and Fleming went down 1813 to Alistair White.
To complete the emphatic defeat, Ray Logan was pipped at the post, going down 16-14 to Kenny Johnstone.