Close eye: Mt Xavier’s Beau Adams and Webbcona’s Colin Young.
BALLARAT Bowling Club has been the round’s big winner after Ballarat East bumped BMS from top spot in Ballarat District Bowls division one pennant play on Saturday.
The Havelock Street side took care of business against struggling Victoria, 116-69 at Ballarat. In the process they gathered 17 of the 18 points on offer, to climb 11 points clear of East.
Ballarat skippers Peter Hopkins (35-6) and Paul Ashmore (40-24) had easy rink wins while Andrew Dalgliesh finished 19-17 up against Alan Callow. Wayne Fitzgerald finished locked with Victoria’s Tony Lange 22-all at the close of play.
Ballarat East, meanwhile, moved into second place by just one point with a 101-79 home win against Ballarat Memorial Sports. The double blues had three rinks up, with Chris McDonald’s four getting the better of Phil Clamp 28-18, Luke Whitehead crew up 22-14 against Kevin McLean’s team, and Peter Dean and co up 29-17 against Des Williams.
A 104-82 away victory at Webbcona has seen Mt Xavier stay in fourth position on the division one ladder. The X-men had three skippers up: Mick Storey (22-19), Beau Adams (31-28) and John Maher (32-10); with Col Young scoring two points for Webbcona with a 25-19 win over Aaron Emonson’s team.
Learmonth narrowed the gap to Mt Xavier, however, with a 97-69 four-rink sweep of Smeaton at Learmonth. David Pike’s team defeated Robert Mizzeni’s 23-15, Bill Shillito’s four scraped home 18-17 against Jim Taylor, Gordon “Tiger” Powell and co beat Bill Leishman 25-20, while Michael Casey was the match’s biggest victor 29-17 against Geoff Toose.
Buninyong took the points in the closest match of the round, with a narrow 102-99 result at City Oval.
For the visitors, Graeme Simpson’s team won 31-16 and Brian Wilcock’s won 28-18 to give Buninyong the edge. Wayne Roberts’s four (29-25) and Gavin Mann’s crew (36-18) earned two points apiece for the home side.
LADDER: BALLARAT 11 wins, 189 points; BALLARAT EAST 10 wins, 178 points; BMS 10 wins, 177; MT XAVIER 10 wins, 162; Learmonth eight wins, 148; Buninyong six wins, 118; City Oval six wins, 118; Smeaton six wins, 102; Webbcona four wins, 93; Victoria two wins, 66.