Gosford City’s trio of Matthew Pithers, Adam Pinkerton and Peter Freestone answered their critics with a stunning victory over the highly fancied Halekulani team of Michael Stead, Pat Reynolds and Aron Sherriff in the Zone 15 Triples Championship held at Bateau Bay Bowling Club.
Gosford City under dogs bite back
Gosford City’s trio of Matthew Pithers, Adam Pinkerton and Peter
Freestone answered their critics with a stunning victory over the highly
fancied Halekulani team of Michael Stead, Pat Reynolds and Aron
Sherriff in the Zone 15 Triples Championship held at Bateau Bay Bowling
Club.
The semi finals were decided in the morning with the local Bateau Bay
team of Stephen Bryant, Keith Campbell and Gary Langham lining up
against the Gosford City trio of Matt Pithers, Adam Pinkerton and Peter
Freestone in one semi and the Halekulani top guns of Michael Stead, Pat
Reynolds and Aron Sherriff in a shoot out against the Avoca Beach
combination of Les James, Dick Love and Peter Coombes in the other semi.
Playing two bowl triples over 25 ends under blue skies with a slight SW
wind on a free running green proved a testing task for all the teams and
many players seemed to struggle with weight control.
Freestone’s Gosford City lads led narrowly until the 15th end when
Bateau Bay boys levelled the score at 10 all and put their nose in front
briefly, but Gosford were not to be denied and regained the lead to
finish the game 20-17 to move into the final.
Meanwhile two rinks away, the Halekulani trio were slugging it out with
Avoca Beach until Avoca were stunned on the 8th end from which they
never recovered and the hot favourites powered away for a resounding
25-14 victory.
This set the scene for a Halekulani / Gosford City showdown in the
afternoon and the critics were tipping a strong Halekulani victory.
But it wasn’t long before the humble pie was being portioned out as
Gosford got the jump on their opponents with a telling four shots on the
first end.
Halekulani threw everything at them to narrow this teasing margin with
great draw bowls from Michael Stead and Aron Sherriff’s accurate
on-shots.
But Gosford held their nerve and stuck to their game plan of draw bowls
from all team members to record a well deserved win of 30-18.
Gosford City skip Peter Freestone was “walking on air” after the game
and said, “After his team was runner up in their Club’s Major Triples
title he felt sure they were knocking on the door of a big win and this
was it.”
The Zone officials watching the final voted Gosford City’s second Adam
Pinkerton as the “Man of the Match” and it is hoped we will see more of
this talented player in the near future.
Peter and his team will now go on to Soldiers Point Bowling Club in their quest for a State title
At the presentation ceremony inside the Bateau Bay clubhouse at the
conclusion of the day Zone 15 President Kevin Dring congratulated all
the players on reaching the final and in particular paid tribute to Matt
Pithers, Adam Pinkerton and Peter Freestone on their first Zone
championship title.
Kevin also took the opportunity of wishing Aron Sherriff every success at the forthcoming Commonwealth Games in Delhi.
Rookies Excel
Eighteen teams of Pairs who have only
been playing bowls for less than 30 months contested the Central Coast
section of the NSW Rookies Pairs played at The GreensTheEntrance.
The field was divided into four sections and each team played three
games to determine the section winners who played off against each other
in the semi-finals.
There was plenty of enthusiasm and the competition was keen as these new bowlers took the green with a point to prove.
The section winners came from four different Clubs with Craig Ross /
Anthony Whitbread Toukley RSL meeting Graham Roberts / Scott Fletcher
Halekulani in one semi-final and Michael Keane / Chris Jones Davistown
RSL versus Graham Ross / Dave Thomson Avoca Beach.
The Toukley RSL pair of Ross and Whitbread won their semi 11-6 to move
into the final against the Davistown pair of Keane / Jones who won their
semi 14-9.
The final was always going to be a tussle with changing fortunes but the
Davistown RSL combination of Michael Keane and Chris Jones run out the
winners 11-8 in a most entertaining game.
They will now go to Raymond Terrace over the long weekend of Oct 2-3 to contest the State final
We wish them every success.