A sea of maroon rolls into the finals
Queensland’s miracle men from Tantitha have defied the odds to make the Australian Champion of Champion pairs final.
Despite their beloved club being destroyed in terrible floods, and the club house later being demolished due to asbestos, Steven Mcnamee and Jason Andrewartha are officially wearing the maroon colours of Tantitha for the last time.
In the final sectional game three states in section two were all a chance to make the final and it came down to the final bowl of the morning.
ACT’s Darren Fitzpatrick and Trentan Healey went into the last round one game and four shots clear of Tasmania and five shots ahead of Queensland.
Queensland was leading ACT 7-4 and Tasmania was leading South Australia 9-2, therefore a change on the top of the leader board was brewing early.
ACT hung tough like they have in their opening two rounds eventually getting their nose in front 9-7 after nine ends.
Tasmania was the first to finish and at the completion of their match, they were holding onto a finals berth as Queensland had once again snuck in front of ACT.
The Scores in the Queensland vs ACT game kept chopping and changing until a feather off a front bowl gave Queensland the edge they needed to reduce ACT’s count of three to a one shot advantage for Queensland; they now led the match by five with one end to play.
Queensland needed to win the match by six to qualify for the final, however ACT was still playing to win and despite holding two shots, Healey tried to make his desired five but ended up killing the end.
Three states were on the edge of their seats for the final end, Tasmania needed ACT to score less than five, ACT needed five to force the draw and qualify a Territory into the final, and Queensland needed one.
Queensland’s lead got the ball rolling for the sunshine state and his skip backed him up with great positional bowls; two narrow drives by Healey and Queensland jumped for joy!
Their finals opponents had been decided only minutes earlier with Victoria triumphing over Western Australia.
The Victorian men were in a similar situation to ACT, TAS and QLD, they were one game and five shots ahead of WA but in this circumstance there were just two teams going head to head in the final sectional match with Western Australian trying to chase Victoria down.
At the half way mark in the match, nothing was separating the two teams; however Victoria still held the slight advantage with their extra margin going into the match.
Victoria put their foot down during the crucial last five ends and secured their finals berth with a 19-11 victory over the gallant Western Australian’s.
QLD’s Tracey Foster and Jo Worsley had the momentous task of defeating Victoria by 13 shots to qualify for the final against the powerhouse pair of Kay Moran and Karen Murphy.
In the early stages of the match it appeared Victoria were up for the challenge and nothing was separating the teams, until a brilliant three ends from the Queenslanders saw them jump out to a nine shot lead with five ends left to play.
Queensland dealt a killer blow for the Victorian ladies on the 17th end, they scored a five and Queensland now had one foot in the final.
Pauline Taylor and Sandra Mccolgan were not done with yet; a superb second bowl from the Victorian skip gave them a chance to score the desired three to put the Queenslanders back out.
Victoria’s last bowl needed to add to the count however when it pulled up short, the Queenslanders breathed sigh of relief, not before they triple checked their calculations were correct and celebrated making their maiden Champion of Champions final.
Two fantastic finals are upon us at Taren Point Bowling Club this afternoon with a combination of Australian, state and club champions going head to head.
For more information and results click here .
