Women’s Country Week wrap
Corrigin’s Noelene Abe has dominated Women’s Country Week winning the Singles and Pairs titles to emulate the feats of York’s Justin Smith who did the same in Men’s Country Week. It is an extremely rare achievement for a person to win multiple titles in the same year given the gruelling schedule with many games each day proving a big physical and mental challenge for players.
The Women’s Country Week Championships supported by Domina BCiB were wrapped up on Saturday evening at Osborne Park Bowling Club.
Abe continues to show her class and why she is dubbed the queen of Corrigin for her bowling feats. In the Singles final she played a great game to defeat Dalwallinu’s Janine Lawton 21-13. Abe had an extremely close encounter in her semi-final surviving a thriller against Mt Barker Golf’s Marg Silvester. Trailing 11-16 in a race to 17 shots Abe then won the last three ends to secure a great come from behind victory 17-16. The other semi-finalist was Paula Reid from Kojonup who went down to Lawton 17-15 in another tight affair.
In the final Abe led 7-1 after just four ends but consistent play by Lawton saw her hit back and take a 12-11 advantage after 12 ends. However from then on Abe played her best bowls as she consistently scored shots including a full count of four on the 15th end powering to another championship win. Amazingly this was a record fifth Country Week Singles title for Abe who first won the event back in 2003.
Abe was joined by club mate and good friend Nola Forbes to claim their second Country Week Pairs Championship for Corrigin. The team mates were dominant through out this event after surviving a close encounter in the last 32 which they won 15-14 over the strong Busselton pair of June Beswick and Helen Paganoni 15-14. After that they were hardly troubled with scores of 19-5, 18-5, 18-5 to move into the final against last years Singles champion Ann Blechynden with partner Ann Dunn from the Bunbury Bowling Club. Abe and Forbes won eight of the first ten ends to take an over whelming 16-3 lead which they held through to the end of the match eventually winning 20-6.
The Fours competition was won by the unheralded Dunsborough team of Denise Mott, Jillian Winter, Gail Barry and Elizabeth Wilson who defeated the Kojonup side of Paula Reid, Bev Broom, Karyn Gibbs and Shelley Bilney 14-12 in the closest of the three finals. The Dunsborough team were nearly eliminated much earlier in the competition, they won their last sectional match 16-5 to survive a three way tie on points and go through to the knock out finals courtesy of superior shots up.
The Dunsborough team started the final by winning ends two to seven to take a 9-1 lead but a score of five and three to the Kojonup foursome saw the scores level at twelve all with just two ends to play. The Dunsborough ladies then held their nerve to score back to back singles and claim the title.
It would have been a big night of celebrations for the Dunsborough ladies, as they not claimed their first title together, but also for the club who recorded the first Country Week title in its history for ladies since being established in the late 1970’s. The only other major win for the club being Wayne Coyle’s 2001 Men’s Country Week Singles victory.
Corrigin was crowned the winners of the Bowls WA Shield awarded to the most outstanding club of the championships which is based on a points system across all three events.
