Spalding Indoor Bowls have moved into the last 16 of the national mixed Egham Trophy competition after an 87-83 victory over Barwell.
Their reward for the victory is a home tie against Nottingham in the next round on Sunday, December 12 – with the winners progressing to the quarter-finals.
Spalding started the stronger of the two teams and at five ends, were 22-11 up across the board.
However, Barwell showed good fighting qualities to reduce the deficit to three shots (40-37) by ten ends.
Spalding extended the lead again by 15 ends (68-53) but Barwell were not ready to give up without a fight.
With three of the four rinks finished, the home rink skipped by Graham Smith were playing their last end – with Spalding three shots ahead overall.
With the crowd on the edge of their seats, the Barwell skip narrowly missed a shot to make three shots with his last bowl to see Smith’s rink collect one and see Spalding through to the next round.
Every member of the team played their part, however, the away rinks did fantastically well, especially the set skipped by Jordan Philpott, with Ruby Hill, Louise Harris and Stephen Harris, who won 25-16.
Rink scores: Home – Rebecca Simpson, Maggie Wheatley, Andy Dunham and Graham Smith won 18-17; Karen Martin, Chelsea Tomlin, Martin Spencer and Tristan Morton lost 22-27. Away – Ruby Hill, Louise Harris, Stephen Harris and Jordan Philpott won 25-16; Brian Martin, Julie Hicks, Annie Dunham and Dominic McVittie lost 22-23.
- Spalding Indoor Bowls Club’s men’s county league team enjoyed a comfortable win against Stamford B by 38 shots (91-53) on Saturday, securing 12 of the available 14 points.
Spalding won on three of the four rinks but the top winning set was skipped by captain Brian Martin, with Mick Dolton, Paul Turner and Stuart Callaby, who returned a winning scorecard of 26-10.
The rinks, skipped by David Nunney and Graham Hicks, also had impressive wins as they won 24-9 and 23-13 respectively.
The win puts Spalding top of the south section men’s county league, albeit only after three games.
Their next game is away at Boston B on Saturday.
- Spalding Indoor Bowls Club’s under-30s team were also supposed to play Lincoln in the national last 16 of the Inter-Club Double Triples on Saturday.
However, unable to field a team, Lincoln conceded the game.
Although this is not how they would have liked to progress, Spalding will now play Hornsea or Hartlepool in the national quarter-final on February 5.
- Sunday saw the friendly section of Spalding IBC travel to the Peterborough to play a game against the Cambridgeshire Vice Presidents’ Association.
This is a yearly event and the next one will be held at Spalding in 2022.
As the VPs are drawn from a number of different clubs throughout Cambridgeshire, they put out a good selection of bowlers of quality and the game is usually a strongly contested affair.
The game started with the VPs taking the lead – but the strong efforts from two rinks pulled back the lead in Spalding’s favour and from there on the rest of the team pushed ahead and closed the game to win on five of the six rinks with a score of 113 to the VPs 69.
Spalding’s best winning rink was made up of Jan Sinclair, Gill Haydon, Trish Stafford and skip Mick Jennings.
Captains for the day were Jan Sinclair and Maisie Belding.
The next game for the friendly side is at home to Grantham on Sunday.
