Spalding Indoor Bowling Club’s sensational season continued last week as Chelsea Tomlin came home from Nottingham with the much-coveted national two bowl singles title.
It’s the second time that Spalding star Tomlin has won the extremely competitive event, having first clinched the crown back in 2019.
In a field that was full of current junior and senior internationals, Tomlin eased her way to the final with wins against Gillian Cliff from Bromsgrove (21-14), Leah Bamford from Folkestone (21-14) and a comfortable semi-final win against Alice Lovett from Loddon Vale (21-7).
In the final, she faced fellow senior international, Nicole Rogers from Exonia, Devon, who had just battled herself through a tense semi-final encounter against current ladies’ world champion, Katherine Rednall, 21-19.
With both Rogers (2018) and Tomlin former champions in this event, the duo were hungry to win it for a second time.
The final was destined to go the distance, but the early exchanges were won by Rogers as she raced into a six-shot lead, 8-2 and 12-6 later on.
Tomlin was not willing to give up without a fight and the gap was closed slightly to within four shots (13-17) before she stepped up a gear to score eight shots without reply to win 21-17.
- The Lincolnshire county semi-finals were played at Stamford Indoor Bowls Club on Sunday and, although it was a very mixed bag of results for Spalding players, they do have representatives in five county finals.
Brian Martin and Jordan Philpott will contest the pairs final after they beat Sam Ashton and George Draper in the semi-final (20-6) to set up a clash with Keith Jackman and Paul Bark from Horncastle.
Lewis Parnell, Andy Dunham and Kevin Ekins are in the triples final after a tense extra end semi-final win against 2009 world singles champion, Billy Jackson and his rink from Lincoln.
In the final, they will play another rink from Lincoln skipped by George Draper, with John Nott and Danny Brown, who beat Spalding’s Graham Smith, Martin Spencer and Mathew Orrey in their semi-final by a single shot (17-16).
In the sets singles, Dominic McVittie will play Kevin Rands from Lincoln after McVittie beat Boston’s Ian Clark in straight sets in his semi-final. In the under 25 singles, there was an all Spalding semi-final clash between Stephen Harris and Philpott.
Harris came out on top in a close encounter, 1.5-0.5 and will now play James Staples from Lincoln in the final.
Spalding’s final county finalist was Martin Simpson in the over-60 singles. He beat John Maury from Sleaford, 16-12 and will play Horncastle’s Paul Bark in the final.
Ruby Hill and Jordan Philpott were also in the mixed pairs semi-final, but were narrowly edged out by Colin Barks and his partner from Dunholme.
- Spalding’s ladies played their final Trudy Bates League fixture of the season at home to Boston on Thursday.
With five regular players out and recovering from COVID-19, it was a new-look Spalding side. But they never let Boston settle and were 36 shots ahead at the halfway stage.
The lead was extended in the second half to eventually win by 45 shots (90-45), collect the 14 available match points and win the south section of the county Trudy Bates League.
Spalding, who have won seven out of eight matches, will now play Lincoln, the winners of the north section in the county final on April 19 at Sleaford IBC.
