Loftus and Savell win Mixed Masters Pairs
On a rainy weekend the luxury of having a 10 rink indoor surface at Stirling Bowling Club was never more evident as the 40 teams that took to the green found out when they competed in the 2021 Mixed Masters Pairs.
The champions were the Osborne Park team of Shane Loftus and Julie Savell who combined superbly to take the title.
Play began on Friday evening where the first 20 teams in sections of four saw five qualifiers progress followed by Saturday sectional play with another five strong teams progressing after three sectional rounds. The champions Loftus and Savell had possibly their toughest scare in the sectional stage when the defending champions Cody and Hailey Packer were a late withdrawal due to illness they had a 9 all draw with husband and wife team of Paul and Lisa Smith from Perth and Tattersalls. Luckily they had recorded a 5 shot win over Mitch Biglin and Lee Poletti (Composite).
The alignment on Sunday morning saw Matthew Whitely and Margaret Anderson (Composite) with a 14-10 win over Ryan Brown and Toni Madigan (Composite) whilst Connor Biddle and Kaitlin Tyrrell (Osborne Park) snuck home 18-17 after trailing 10-1 they picked up a 3 to defeat Kathy Gobbart and Stephen Beckwith (Composite).
This left eight remaining teams in the quarter finals. Biddle and Tyrell defeated Whitely and Anderson 18-10, Blake Nairn and Shari Solly (Composite) won 14-10 over Joe Rollnik and Nerida Porteous (Ellenbrook), Loftus and Savell defeated Rhett Butler and Julie Maxwell (Sorrento) 12-8 and finally John Slavich with his grand mother Mary Slavich (Composite) had a tight 13-12 win over Blake Butler and his girlfriend Laura Merz (Manning) 13-12.
The semi-finals saw Loftus and Savell jump out the blocks picking up a 6 on the first end against Biddle and Tyrrell. The youngster then steadied to lift and closed in with the match at 11-11 with just a few ends to play. However Shane Loftus found some good bowls to close it out winning 16-11. In the other match the Slavich duo always had the upper hand against Nairn and Solly winning 13-7.
In what looked a promising final over 15 ends Mary Slavich who as a spritely 87 year old may have just been feeling the effects of playing in her sixth match across two days as she wasn’t quite at her best with Julie Savell showing great consistency in the leaders dual. Skip John Slavich found it tough to remedy the situation which along with the excellent play of his opposition Shane Loftus the final became a one sided affair. Loftus and Savell much too good in the end winning 22-2 and deservedly lifting the trophy as the 2021 champions.
Stirling Mixed Master Pairs 2021 Full Results
Congratulations to the Stirling Bowling club for a well run event, well done to the winners and finalists and thank you to all those who entered.
The next event in the Dyenamic Masters Series will be the Bassendean Men’s Masters Triples on November 21 and 28. Entries will open for this event in the next few days.
