It’s getting to that time of the season where the national competition matches start coming thick and fast! It’s an exciting time for many bowlers at our club, when they embark on their quests for national glory. Having missed out on a competitive indoor season in 2020/2021, everyone is very much looking forward to getting started again.
We have a couple of results to report already. In an all Westlecot affair, Mikey Titcombe and partner Andy McIntyre took on Clive Vaughan and Paul Pope in round 1 of the National Pairs. After a fairly tight tussle early on, Mikey and Andy managed to pull away, stringing together some big scoring ends to run out comfortable winners. Mikey and Andy now have a home tie in the second round to look forward to against either AJ Docherty of Chipping Norton or Sam Watts of Oxford City & County.
In the Ladies Champion of Champions, Lucy Smith got her campaign off to a solid start with a comprehensive 21-4 win over Slade’s Ladies Champion Carolyn Hunt. This puts Lucy through to the area semi-final, where she will travel to Oxford City & County to take on their champion Jeanette Berry.
A big congratulations to all of our members who were involved in Wiltshire’s victory in the Liberty Trophy over Worcestershire at North Wilts on Saturday. After a slow start, Wiltshire recovered well to eventually record a relatively comfortable 18 shot win.
The all Westlecot rink of Paul Kistle, Josh Fail, Andy McIntyre and Mikey Titcombe were involved in a good tussle with Brian Lees, eventually winning 15-13. Another all Westlecot rink of Dave Snell, Chris Cheesley, Mel Biggs and Neil Smith recovered from a slow start against Martin Smith to return an impressive final scorecard of 30-15. Kevin Embling and Tom Pittuck were front end for Craig Hatherall’s rink, who did well to hold a strong Worcestershire rink skipped by Tom Holmes for a majority of the game, just losing a few shots towards the end, losing 15-24. Barry Sictorness led for the Scott Edwards rink who scored a 7 at a crucial point of the game, eventually winning 22-18 against John Cracknell.
We also had 3 reserves who were all in attendance in Ollie Moody, Terry Walton & Shaun Hicks.
In team competition news, it’s been an unfortunate start to the season in that we have received walkovers in the first round of the Denny Cup, Top Club and Egham Trophy. We now face Whiteknights in all three of these competitions in round 2.
This weekend sees 3 of our national teams in action and we very much look forward to seeing how things unfold. On Saturday morning, our men face Whiteknights in the Denny Cup, whilst the women will face Swindon Manor in a local derby. On Sunday morning, our Under 30’s double triples team will be in action, taking on Carterton. Matches in this competition are usually one triple at home and one triple away, however on this occasion it has been agreed that both triples will play at Swindon Manor. Good luck to everyone involved!
Written by Mikey Titcombe