THE East Lothian Indoor Bowling Club gents’ side’s bid to win the Scottish Premier League title for a record-breaking seventh time is still very much alive after the team clinched B Section qualifying honours with a comprehensive 33-shot win (100-67) over Lanarkshire at Meadowmill.

In Saturday’s climax to the section play, the Garden County had to win, then hope that section leaders Falkirk lost at Ardrossan, and there were to be scenes of jubilation in the East Lothian camp when news filtered through that the Ayrshire side had won 81-58, promoting EL to top spot.

“Our task was to go out and get a positive result, then hope for good news from Ardrossan, and thankfully we got both,” commented team captain Billy Mellors.

East Lothian will face fellow six-time champions West Lothian in the play-off decider at Auchinleck IBC on Saturday, February 15.

The club is organising a coach to the final and there will be a limited number of seats available for any members wishing to go and cheer the team on. Anyone interested is requested to contact club secretary Scott Kennedy as soon as possible. Wins on three rinks – skipped by Willie Wood, Scott Kennedy and Billy Mellors – made East Lothian the dominant force, while the defeat of Jamie Higgins was a narrow one.

A late positional change saw Wood replace Derek Oliver, who had a slight leg injury, at skip and his rink of Ewan Fallen, Gary Darling and Graham Robertson delivered a hefty 26-7 win over Robert Gordon.

Kennedy skipped Colin Cook, Jamie Gordon and Derek Oliver to an impressive 32-17 win over Robert Grant, while Mellors was made to fight much harder for his success but showed true grit to skip Kieran Simants, Dougie Berwick and Andrew Jeffrey to a 22-16 win over John Simpson.

Higgins and his rink of Mark Johnston, Steven Morgan and Stewart Thomson were 18-1 adrift at one stage, including losing a full house of eight shots on the sixth end, but battled back brilliantly in a 27-20 defeat from Henry Smith.

The national indoor bowls calendar this weekend is devoted to the playdown action of the gents’ and ladies’ National Triples. The talented trio of Kieran Simants, Tommy Young and Dougie Berwick carry local hopes in the gents’ discipline at West Lothian IBC in Livingston and they launch their qualifying challenge against Stirling in the preliminary-round action at 9.30am.

At Bainfield IBC in Edinburgh, Margaret Thomson, Yvonne Veitch and Emma Brown will carry the EL banner into the ladies’ event and they tackle Teviotdale, also in preliminary-round action at 9.30am.

Last Wednesday’s qualifying action in the Jock Brodie Senior Challenge Cup saw defending champions East Lothian A stage a late rally to secure an 8-0 points win over Teviotdale, while Bainfield claimed a hard-fought 5-3 win over Midlothian.

A senior side from East Lothian was in Central District Senior Top 6 action yesterday (Thursday) when they tackled Headwell at Bainfield IBC.

The youth side from East Lothian IBC kept their slim East of Scotland Junior League title hopes alive following a hard fought 5-2 points win at Falkirk on Saturday morning. The rink skipped by Calvert Allison lost but Dean Riva and newly crowned National Under-18 Singles champion Calum Darling both won.