Paritutu’s Gloria Shaw is one of the earlier qualifiers in the Taranaki women’s Open fours bowls tournament.
Playing on the Vogeltown greens on Wednesday, Shaw’s side of Marie Mummery, Marlene McArthur and Barbara Harvey took the direct route into post section, by notching up two victories.
That brought Shaw’s count up to four, the number required to qualify, after the team did likewise on Tuesday.
In the morning match, Shaw defeated Mercury Bay’s Lee McDonald 28-19 and then completed the achievement with a 28-17 win over Janet Olliver (Waitarere Beach). Against McDonald, Shaw had to withstand a comeback to hold on.
After leading 20-11 through 16 of the 25 ends, it became 22-19 after 21. But Shaw’s side dominated the scoring after that. Things were a little bit more comfortable against Olliver, a count of seven on end 17, creating a 22-9 advantage.
Shaw won the Open in 2010 playing No 3 for Valda Rowan.
Joining Shaw on four wins are two further Taranaki teams, Elaine Hodge (New Plymouth) and Pauline Davy (Opunake). Both Hodge and Davy had relatively trouble-free days. There are four visiting sides that have also qualified already – Elaine McClintock (Orewa), Mary Solomon (Tauranga), Alison Rennie (Carlton Cornwall) and defending champion Marg Davies (Papakura).
Rennie and Paritutu’s Cathy Andrews had a ding-dong clash in section B at Lepperton in the morning. It was Rennie that got home 31-28. In the afternoon, Rennie was a resounding 32-5 victor over Sue Edwards (New Plymouth). Andrews got back on track with a 23-13 win against Rhonda Adams (Fitzroy). That left Andrews handily placed on three wins, but Adams has only one win and cannot qualify.
Ngongotaha’s Wendy Green had two strong wins, the second 27-11 over Mere Fryer (Palmerston North), to leave both sides on three wins.
Bowls Taranaki patron, Patty Symes (Tower), is enjoying being back on the greens having missed last season’s event. Symes skipped teams to the final in 2016 and 2018.
She currently sits on two wins, after an eventful morning. That included dodging Peppa, the miniature schnauzer, which ran through a few heads at Vogeltown.
It didn’t distract Symes and her side, though, as they inflicted the first defeat in the competition on Liz Witton (Taupo) 27-16. But while Witton rebounded to win narrowly in the afternoon, Symes lost 21-19 on an extra end to three-winner Trish Howard (West End).
Both Heather Johns (Paritutu) and Cindy Nicoll (Inglewood) sit on three wins, while after two losses on Tuesday, Mina Paul (Ngongotaha) won twice to keep alive her hopes.
By the end of play on Thursday, approximately 22 of the 56 sides are expected to have registered the necessary four wins for Friday’s post section rounds.
