East Lothian Courier | Sport | Bowls update: County still on trail of third title

Thursday, 8th January, 2009

Published: Thursday, 6th December, 2007 09:30

Bowls update: County still on trail of third title

A SINGLE shot victory over bottom of the section Elgin kept East Lothian’s gents’ side in the hunt for a third successive bowls title in the Scottish Premier League with two rounds of matches left to play.

Elgin looked out of the picture at 20 shots down after 15 ends, but not for the first time this campaign, EL suffered a late collapse right across the carpet and just managed to hang on for the vital win.

Massive

Blantyre maintained their two-point advantage at the top of the section after beating West Lothian 74-71, while Paisley’s 78-69 home victory over Aberdeen helps them stay in contention in third place on eight points alongside East Lothian.

“At the end of the day it’s a massive two points for us. Yet again we made things very difficult for ourselves by suffering another late collapse, but thankfully this time we got away with it,” said team captain Brian Wyllie.

Alex Marshall, Willie Wood MBE and Graham Robertson all skipped their rinks to 5-shot wins and that just outweighed the 14-shot defeat suffered by Steven Morgan.

East Lothian face a win or bust fixture at Paisley tomorrow (Saturday) as the race for qualifying honours in the B section enters the penultimate week of action.

Wayne Hogg makes a welcome return to the EL line-up, but Andrew Jeffrey and Derek Oliver are absentees – Oliver jetted out to Hong Kong earlier this week to represent Scotland in the prestigious Hong Kong Classic singles and pairs events.

Derek Lowe also returns to the side while a re-shuffle of positional priorities gives Scott Kennedy the chance to shine at skip with Steven Morgan dropping down to third. The full team reads: J Higgins, D Lowe, B Wyllie (capt), G.Robertson (skip), M Higgenbotham, David Oliver, S Glen, A Marshall (skip), M Johnston, J Stevenson, W Hogg, WW Wood (skip), S Wyllie, J Gordon, S Morgan, S Kennedy (skip).

The ladies of East Lothian IBC were in fine form on Saturday to score a hard-fought 79-70 home win over Bainfield in the D section of the Ladies Scottish League, a result which leaves them two points adrift of leaders Midlothian with two fixtures remaining.

Advantage

Agnes Cunningham (+7), Diane Rowan (+7) and Janet Fairnie (+1) skipped the winning home rinks, while Nancy McNeil suffered a narrow defeat.

The ladies are at home to Tweedbank tomorrow and an unchanged team is expected to make it six wins in a row.

East Lothian IBC’s senior side made home carpet advantage count to beat Balbardie 60-47 at Meadowmill stadium last Wednesday to consolidate their present grip on the East B section of the Scottish Seniors League.

The seniors had the chance to take a massive step towards qualification to the knockout stage when they visited nearest challengers Portobello on Wednesday.

A side from East Lothian IBC is in Scottish Team Championship action on Sunday at Midlothian IBC as they tackle West Lothian in an eagerly awaited preliminary round clash.

The youth side at East Lothian IBC continued their rich vein of form in the East of Scotland Junior League by chalking up their third straight win with a 9-0 points victory over Falkirk at Meadowmill stadium on Saturday.

Wins for Ewan Fallen, Emma Brown, Glen Blair and Fraser Pringle sealed the victory.

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