Last Sunday saw the Lincolnshire IBA men’s and mixed county semi finals at Lincoln IBC, with a lot of Spalding Lightning representation across both senior and junior competitions in another successful day for the club.
The first session saw three of the six games featuring Spalding bowlers:
Men’s Singles – Stephen Harris played Danny Brown from the host club and after a slow start, Harris won 21-17.
Men’s Triples – Martin Spencer, Mathew Orrey and Dominic McVittie played Rod West, Nathan Dunnington and Jonathan West, from Boston, with the Spalding team winning by 22 shots to 15.
Men’s Fours – Graham Smith, Kevin Ekins, Simon Lilley and Jordan Philpott played Paul Bark, Mark Burn, Darren Trapmore and Lee Boucher, from Horncastle, and Spalding triumphed by 22 shots to ten.
The second session saw three of the seven matches featuring Spalding bowlers:
Men’s Triples – Smith, Lilley and Philpott played Jake Johnson, Kevin Rands and Dean Stevenson, from Lincoln, and saw Spalding’s first defeat of the day by ten shots to 20.
Men’s Fours – Harris, Spencer, Orrey and McVittie played Mike Humphreys, Wayne Morris, Neil Wright and Adam Warrington, from Stamford, and won by 19 shots to five.
Open Under 15 Singles – Jessica Butters played Kelsie Fox, from Lincoln, and won two sets to nil.
The final session saw four of the six ties featuring Spalding bowlers:
Men’s Singles – McVittie played Nick Wilkie, from Stamford, winning 21-13.
Open Set Singles – Philpott played Paul Oke, from Sleaford, but lost two sets to nil.
Open Under 18 Triples – Jessica Butters and Aidan Brickles (with Freddie Knapp) played Lucy Allerton, Freddie Hoyles and Josh Durrands and won by 15 shots to eight while Oscar Butters (with Kelsie Fox and Charlie Nicholls) lost by ten shots to 19 to Harry Allerton, Chloe Bland and Jack Hoyles.
There are two semi finals yet to be played because of duplications.
The first is the men’s pairs with Philpott and McVittie playing Brown and James Heath, from Lincoln, on March 18.
The second is the mixed pairs with Lightning’s Julie Hicks and McVittie versus Katie Tointon and Martin Tomlin, from Boston, on March 23.
The winners have now gone forward to the county finals on April 26, at Sleaford.
*The last of the national area qualifying finals were played at Horncastle IBC and Sleaford IBC, and the club was represented in four of these matches.
The ladies’ two-bowl singles area qualifier was between Ruby Philpott and Helen Butler (Boston).
This saw a close game won by Philpott (21-17) which sees her through to the national finals at Nottingham IBC on April 10 and 11.
Secondly, the men’s triples area qualifier saw Spencer, Orrey and McVittie playing against Brown, Johnson and Rands (Lincoln) and ended being a comfortable 28-12 shot win for Spalding.
This sees them through to the national finals at Nottingham IBC on April, 7 and 8.
Thirdly, the men’s fours area qualifier featured Spencer, Orrey and McVittie, this time with Harris, against Trapmore, Bark, Burn and Boucher (Horncastle).
Spalding got home in a tight encounter by 16 shots to 14 and this puts them through to the national finals at Nottingham IBC on March 30 and 31.
Lastly, the open pairs area qualifier saw Dan Mills and Kevin Ekins facing off versus Bark and Burn (Horncastle).
In a one-sided match, Mills and Ekins were victorious in straight sets (18-1, 14-8) which puts them through to the national finals at Nottingham IBC on April 16, 17 and 18.
In conclusion, the club were represented in 13 of the 20 area individual finals and were successful in 11 of these matches.
- The Spalding Lightning friendly team played their fourth match on successive Sundays, at home against Terrington St Clements BC.
They played a game of four rinks of 18 end fours and this saw a comfortable victory for the home side, winning overall by 90 shots to 40.
The team won on three of the four rinks played, with the top winning rink skipped by Roger Perkins, ably assisted by Edna Perkins, Dinah Fairbanks and David Murray who won 28-4.
The next friendly is away versus Peterborough BC this Saturday (March 14).
- Spalding Lightning’s mixed county league team were holding firm at the top of the league table, and faced a difficult trip away to Lincoln IBC A last Saturday where the result would be key.
But, as has been seen with other teams this year, the side fell short losing by 61 shots to 97 and collecting only one rink and two points from the maximum 14 points available.
The winning rink was skipped by Brian Martin, with Ben Sharp, Maisie Belding and Karen Martin who won 23-22.
With this result, and Louth winning away at Sleaford last weekend, Lincoln and Louth are ahead of Lightning in the table and both have a game in hand so one of those are now favourites to win the league.
Their final match of the season is at home against Sleaford on March 22.
Rink scores: Sharp, Belding, Martin and Martin won 23-22; Ann Newbury, June Taylor, Rob West and Robin Roffe lost 17-22; George Deaton, Betty Deaton, Carole Nunney and David Nunney lost 10-26; Gill Haydon, Sue Slayven, Tony Westland and Graham Wright lost 11-27.
- The Lincolnshire WIBA ladies’ county semi finals takes place next Sunday at Horncastle IBC, and features the following Spalding Lightning representation:
Ladies’ Singles – Chelsea Spencer (playing Amy Pharaoh from Louth)
Ladies’ Triples – Philpott, Spencer and Annie Dunham (playing S Hoyles, S Tebbs and S Simpson-Shaw from Boston)
Ladies’ Fours – Danielle Wild, Jessica Butters, Dunham and Spencer (playing S Bridges, F Davis, L Evans and D Wilson-Rogers from Lincoln)
Ladies’ Under 25 Singles – Butters and Wild (playing each other).
The ladies’ pairs between Lightning players Philpott and Spencer and Karen Martin and Louise Harris was played last Friday night at Long Sutton because of duplications on semi finals day, and this was won by Philpott and Spencer so sees them through to the final.
The winners of these competitions will go forward to the county finals (with the Lincolnshire IBA men’s and mixed finalists) being played on Sunday, April 26 at Sleaford IBC.
- Finally as the indoor season at Long Sutton starts to come to a conclusion with the last games played towards the end of April, the club will continue to hold domestic summer league games.
These commence from May 1 and will finish at the end of August and plans to see three leagues of a Tuesday morning triples (10am to 12pm), a Thursday morning triples (10am to 12pm) and a Thursday evening 4321 triples (6.30pm to 8.30pm) .
These will run alongside Maisie Belding’s drives on Monday mornings, Wednesday mornings and Friday afternoons, as well as the usual Friday morning 50+ league.
The forms to enter these leagues are ready to collect from the club bar.
For any queries, ask the steward on duty or contact David Nunney (internal league secretary).
