Five Arches 70 Pendine 87
An unusual Friday night game for the Five Arches in their top of the table clash against Pendine. The weather remained calm after the previous night's storm. The Five Arches team had to win this game to have any chance of winning the 2nd division championship so all was set for an interesting tussle.
In front of an appreciative crowd on rink 2, Ashley and his rink of Dai, Tony and Gwyn were involved in a topsy turvy match against former Five Arches player Dai King Thomas. A strange game with the Arches picking up a count of 7 but dropping counts of 5 and 4, left the game at 23 all with one end to play. Fine play by Dai and Tony and with Ashley keeping well out of the way, the Arches rink picked up two shots to clinch the win. Roy and his rink of Ken, Ken and Ben were on the tricky rink 3 and were involved in another close run affair. The lead changed hands on a number of occasions and there was all to play for on the last end however the Pendine four hung on to record a 17-15 win.
Lee and his rink of Eamonn, John and Mike had the classic match of two halves. The first half was close fought with the visitors leading by 2 after 10 ends however the Pendine quartet piled on the pressure after the break picking up 14 shots in a 5 end burst to clinch the game and ran out winners by 29 shots to 12. Out on rink five, Tony with Ben, Clive and last minute substitute Lawrence were involved in an epic battle, neither side managed to open up more than a 3 shot lead and yet another match was decided on the final end.Trailing by 2, the Pendine foursome rallied with some good bowling to pick up 4 shots to win by 18-16.
Overall a disappointing result for the Five Arches but congratulations to Pendine, they were worthy winners. We now have a break until our next game, away to St Thomas on Sunday 8th August.
Dai Rees, Tony Powling, Gwyn Beynon, Ashley Hooper 25 D King Thomas 23
Ken Lloyd, Ken Williams, Ben Cloake, Roy Powling 15 M Evans 17
Eamonn Maher, Jon Hubbard, Mike Gouldingay, Lee Richards 14 G Hale 29
Ben Simmons, Lawrence Hourahane, Clive Webb, Tony Brown 16 S King Thomas 18