State Champions Week 2016 – Day 6
Chloe Stewart leaves Victorian bowls as a winner, claiming the 2016 women’s State singles championship before she departs Victoria for Queensland.
The 20-year-old Australian representative is moving to the Gold Coast in an attempt to further her bowls career, and lock down a 2018 Commonwealth Games spot while based in the city which will host it.
The Central Victorian secured her State title on day 6 of State Champions Week with a 25-15 victory over West Coast’s Kellie Bowles (Koroit BC), and continued what has been an excellent week of bowls for her personally.
Stewart (Kyneton BC) had made the semi-finals of the Champion of Champion singles earlier in the event – beaten in an epic three-and-a-quarter hour match against Sandbelt’s Ann McCarthy.
But in the State singles, Stewart raced through her qualifiers beating Lucy Dalli (Gippsland) 25-10 in the round of 16, before a clinical dispatch of Julie Ross (Bendigo Campaspe) 25-7 in the quarters.
Stewart was speedily off the green again in the morning session after beating Sandra McColgan (Peninsula Casey) 25-10 to book a final against Bowles, who had been also impressive in her lead-ins culminating in a 25-24 win over Nicole Shortis (Geelong) in the semi-final.
In the men’s triples, Yarraville-Footscray’s Nathan Murray, Jamie Pearce and Chris Ball secured a State title for Metro West with a 26-7 win over Central Victoria.
Murray played some exceptional bowls in the final, but the entire trio took their turn to stand up when needed during an impressive run through the tournament – a 23-2 defeat of West Coast putting them into a gold medal showdown with a Sebastopol rink skipped by Ian Warner.
But Warner, Josh Barry and Noel Sutherland were unable to recover as the Yarraville-Footscray outfit took a stranglehold mid-match – moving from 7-5 up to 23-5 up fairly quickly.
Both finals were finished before afternoon rain which struck some mixed pairs matches.
But eventually Metro West, Ovens and Murray, Bendigo Campaspe and Gippsland won their way into the semi-finals, which will be held on the final day of State Champions Week competition.
Gippsland’s Jan Morton and Ken Sceney produced two thrilling wins, beating Sandbelt’s Lizzy Lamb and John Free 17-15 in an exciting round of 16 match which went down to the last end.
Then they buttered up for a one-shot win over Yarra’s Tristania Doolan and Ray Jansen – club mates at MCC Kew.
Morton and Sceney now take on local hopes Amelia Bruggy and Andrew Brown (Bendigo BC) in the semis.
Meanwhile, the Vic Shield race is hotting up as 2016 State Champions Week heads into its final day at Bendigo East Bowling Club.
The trophy is awarded to the Region which accumulates the most points over all the season’s State title events.
After Day 6, the points standings are:
Northern Gateway 50
Eastern Ranges 49
Ovens and Murray 47
Central Victoria 46
Sandbelt 46
Metro West 43
Geelong 37
West Coast 37
Wimmera 37
Peninsula Casey 35
Bendigo Campaspe 32
Central Goulburn Murray 32
Yarra 31
Strzelecki 30
Murray Mallee 26
Gippsland 24
Points are awarded: Event winner – 10; Runner-up – 5; Equal 3rd – 3; Quarter-finals – 2; Round of 16 – 1
Results, women’s State singles
Results, men’s triples
Results, mixed pairs
State Champions Week, Day 5 story
State Champions Week, Day 4 story
State Champions Week, Day 3 story
State Champions Week, Day 2 story
State Champions Week, Day 1 story