Carla Odgers wins 2015 Australian Indoor title
Victoria”s Carla Odgers is the 2015 Australian Indoor women’s champion.
Odgers, from Sunbury, won an epic Australian Indoor Championships final stretching nearly two and a half hours, beating Queensland’s Lynsey Clarke at Tweed Heads Bowls Club to secure the title.
Odgers had been in sparkling form throughout the tournament. She defeated South Australian Yvonne Bekeris to open the tournament, then NSW’s Natalie Noronha in the round of 16.
Former Scottish international Kay Moran was her quarter-final opponent, with Odgers coming from a set down and thereimperious in a tie-break to move into the semis.
There she had to overcome defending champion Jamie-Lee Worsnop of NSW, which the Victorian did to set up a showdown with Clarke.
Adding to the theatre in the final was the fact Clarke is seven months’ pregnant with her first child.
But Odgers made a confident start, moving to a 6-2 first set lead before her Australian teammate Clarke picked up four shots on the fifth end to wrest back control.
Odgers then won three ends in a row to take back the upper hand and grab a 10-8 first set win.
Clarke took total control of the second set, racing to a 5-1 lead and eventually sealing victory to force a tie-break.
Odgers then stepped up, taking four shots in the first end and a stranglehold on the title and the $6,000 winner’s cheque.
Fellow Victorians Barrie Lester (Mulgrave Country Club) and Max Mannik (Croydon) made the final eight of the men’s event before bowing out in the quarter-finals.
Both lost to the eventual men’s finalists – Lester overcome by local Paul Girdler, while Mannik was beaten by Jeremy Henry of NSW club Warilla.
Leopold’s Nicole Shortis and Traralgon’s Will McIlwain also made the last 16.