Provost’s awesome foursome 3rd Fours title
Men’s State Fours Final Results October 27th Anthony Provost (Vic Park Carlisle), Thomas Mitchell (Vic Park Carlisle), Rhett Butler (Vic Park Carlisle) and Mark Simpson (Gingin) claimed their third State Fours title as a team at Bassendean today. Having previously won the title in 2009/10 and 2010/11, the foursome needed to hold their nerve to get through the semi final with a last end four but then came out with their full arsenal of shots to blow the final apart.
The Bassendean Bowling Club showed they are one of the premier clubs in the metropolitan area with plenty of hospitality and a world class green that was capped off with terrific weather.
The Provost team started their Semi Final with a bang against Jim Barry (Doubleview), Ron Haring (Doubleview), Alan Dawson (Doubleview) and Gordon Twist (Eaton) and after five ends lead the game 10-1. However from this point on the Barry team started to put some of their own pressure on to level the game at 12 all after 13 ends of the 18 end semi final. When they went into the last end with a lead of 17-14 it looked like the underdogs were going to move into their first State Fours final. At the half way point of the last end a Provost recovery was a possibility before Ron Haring stepped up and killed the end to keep the crowd on the edge of their seats. The replayed 18th end had all you would expect of a State event semi final, first Gordon Twist put a bowl on the jack before Thomas Mitchell removed two opposition shots to give the Provost rink two shots. Another drawn shot by Mitchell made it three and then a drawn shot by Provost made it four. Barry with his first seemed to have the weight and line to sit into the pack of shots but just touched the shot bowl and fell out to still be down to many shots. With the pressure on his last, again he had good enough weight but had a tight line and was not able to stop the Provost team getting 4 shots and a place in they final with an 18-17 win.
The second semi final started with the Stirling team of Mark Pasalich, Sam Perica, Garry Lockett and Mick Marovic getting a solid start and a 4-1 lead after 5 ends. It was then that Matthew Mitchell (Manning), Matthew Ayres (Vic Park Carlisle), Paul Butler (Manning) and Ron Ker (Manning) started to work their way on top and with consecutive threes on the 7th and 8th ends to build a four shot lead, they were never headed and eventually ran out 18-7 winners.
The final between the Anthony Provost skipped team and the Matthew Mitchell skipped team started off in regulation style before the 2nd end put the Manning skip on the back foot. A good 2 on the 1st end by Mitchell was quickly forgotten when Provost grabbed a huge 7 shots and then followed up with a 3 and 1 to move to 11-2 after just 4 ends. A 2 by Mitchell on the 7th end to make the score 5-12 had the crowd hoping a revival was in the offing but the Provost team would have none of that. After the scare in the semi final after holding an early lead, Provost, T Mitchell, Butler and Simpson put on a show and collected another 10 shots in 5 ends to have the game won at 22-5 after 13 ends. With the game beyond doubt it was called off 2 ends short of the required number with Anthony Provost, Thomas Mitchell, Rhett Butler and Mark Simpson 29-7 victors and the 2013-14 Western Australian Men’s State Fours Champions.
