Women’s State Fours Final Results
The Women’s and Men’s State Fours became the third of the WA state events to hold the finals at the same venue on the same day and was rewarded with a good crowd at the Bassendean Bowling Club.
Over the last couple of years both the WA State Singles and the WA State Triples have brought both Men and Women Finals together to produce a day of great atmosphere generated by the larger crowd of spectators.
When the Semi Finals of the Women’s State Fours got underway at the Bassendean Bowling Club it was obvious that the winning team was going to need to produce a high level game. Twelve out of sixteen players taking to the green had either were or had recently represented Western Australia in a National Side Series.
The first Semi Final saw Helen Morss, Therese Hastings, Robyn O’Brien and Shenayde Heldt (Manning) take on Liz Matthews, Shari Solly, Denise Kelly and Toni Madigan (Composite).
Morss jumped out of the blocks to lead 9-0 after only 4 ends had been played. After 8 ends were gone Matthew’s team had shown some fight and had edged backed to be only 4 behind. However disaster struck on the 9th end when the Morss rink grabbed a 6 to give them a 10 shot buffer at the halfway mark. It was all over at that point with Morss holding the lead to the end to take the game 23-12.
The second Semi Final was a battle of a couple of legends of Women’s bowls with Lee Poletti leading her composite rink of Kerry Andersen, Vicki Spragg and Bev Scott against Kathy Gobbart’s new Sorrento rink of Barbara Lorencs, Nerrida Porteous and Pauline Bourne.
After 10 ends the game was as expected with scores at 7-7, however a number of times during the first half of the game Poletti had threatened to pull away by opening up a 3 shot lead on three separate occasions only to see Gobbart fight back. It was the 11th, 12th and 13th end that proved to be the difference. First a 5 then a 1 and finally a 3 saw the Polletti team open up a 16-7 match winning score line. With the last 5 ends going back and forward Poletti was able to march on into another State Fours final 20-12.
The final of Lee Poletti, Kerry Andersen, Vicki Spragg and Bev Scott verses Helen Morss, Therese Hastings, Robyn O’Brien and Shenayde Heldt brought together in the same game over 750 games of state bowls experience, 11 Connie Hicks Medals and 23 WA State Fours Titles. With both Poletti and Scott playing for their 6th title and Hastings looking for her 5th.
The game started off as expected 1-1 after 2 ends and then Poletti leading 3-2 after 4 ends. But as they did in the semi final, the Poletti rink was able to string together multiple ends by taking a 3 on the 5th, a 1 on the 6th and a 2 on the 7th end to open up a 9-2 lead. A mini fight back by Morss saw her team close to 5-9 after 9 ends before the writing was on the wall when Poletti took a 6 on the 11th end to lead 17-5.
A Strong display of driving by the Morss rink saw a number of dead ends when they were in trouble and allowed them to add some scoreboard pressure to close the gap to 6 shots with 4 ends to play. However you do not win the number of titles that the Poletti team own by giving into a little a pressure. A couple of solid ends by all four players saw the gap widen again and for Lee Poletti, Kerry Andersen, Vicki Spragg and Bev Scott to take the 2015-16 Women’s State Fours 21-12.
