Spalding Indoor Bowls Club’s dream of winning the Denny Cup ended with an agonising narrow defeat at the mighty Cumbria on Saturday.
Nine-time winners and defending champions, Cumbria, who play out of Carlisle, won the highly competitive and close last 16 encounter 79-73 to keep their hopes of retaining the crown alive.
With there being no more than six or seven shots in the game all the way through, it was always going to be decided in the last few ends, which proved to be the case as it went to the wire.
Leading the way for Spalding was captain, Graham Smith, who skipped his rink of Stephen Harris, Steve Hill and Calvin Leuty to a 25-18 win against former Commonwealth Games silver medallist Stuart Airey.
The set skipped by Mathew Orrey also managed a narrow single shot victory.
However, the rinks skipped by Martin Spencer and Jordan Philpott, found their opposition in top form as they were beaten by nine and five shots respectively.
Spalding offered their congratulations to Cumbria after the defeat and wished them all the best for the rest of the competition.
In the quarter-final, they will play South Shields, who beat 2017 champions Kingsthorpe in their last 16 clash.
Rink scores (all rinks played at York): Stephen Harris, Steve Hill, Calvin Leuty, Graham Smith –25-18; Rhys Hill, Nathan Puttrell, Maurice Elding, Martin Spencer – 12-21; Matt Whyers, John Needham, Kevin Ekins, Jordan Philpott – 17-22; Nick Wilkie, Martin Simpson, Andy Dunham, Mathew Orrey – 19-18.
- Spalding IBC’s over-60s team hosted Scunthorpe in their sixth game of the season last Thursday.
Spalding started slowly and were 16-0 down after only two ends. By 10 ends, they had managed to pull that back somewhat, moving into winning positions on two rinks and only nine shots adrift.
Then, at 12 ends, Spalding were winning on two rinks, drawing on two rinks and only down on one – but still five shots adrift on aggregate.
The game seemed salvageable but, by end 15, the pendulum was swinging back in Scunthorpe’s favour and by 20 ends, they were winning on all five rinks and had established a 22 shot lead on aggregate.
Spalding never gave up and, despite going down on three rinks, drew on two and only lost the aggregate by ten.
That ensured a final result of 16-2 to Scunthorpe and an aggregate score of 102-92 in their favour.
Spalding’s captain would like to thank Colin Wilson, Brian Skelton and Gerald Horne who covered at short notice due to sickness.
Captain for the day was Graham Hicks.
