Little joy for Cranbourne

THE Cranbourne Bowling Club played a very disappointing weekend of pennant bowls with only one of the six teams having a win.
The Division One side travelled to play against a strong Blackburn team on their patchy turf green in gusty conditions. The Cranny side was unable to adapt to the tricky green as quickly as the opposition and was down by 20 shots across the board at the afternoon break.
A spirited talk by team captain Glenn Bainbridge centred the focus of the Cranny players who lifted their game in the second half to get within nine shots with a few ends to play. Unfortunately they ran out of ends and finished up losing by six shots in an exciting finish.
Ray Travica’s rink was in brilliant form and led all day, winning by 12 shots. ‘Two Dogs’ Lyfield was welcomed back to the side after a few weeks off and cajoled his rink to a three-shot win with his strong on field presence. Chris Fox and Lyn Quigg both fought back well after the break, but were unable to overcome big early deficits to lose by eight and 13 shots respectively.
Blackburn 83 d Cranbourne 77. R. Travica 27-15, C. Fox 20-28, L. Quigg 11-24, R.Lyfield 19-16.
The second side played host to Armadale’s top side, but could only manage to win one of the four rinks. Bobby Kent’s rink of Barb Gribbin, Fritz Helle and Ian Barrenger were once again the stars of the side, winning a hard-fought game by four shots.
Armadale 93 d Cranbourne (2). K. Fulton 12-28, R. Kent 19-15, R. Reid 12-23, G. Hunt 24-27.
The third side played away against Narre Warren’s top side and also managed to win just one rink. John Mulder’s rink of Barb Fulton, Isobel Partington and Ron Shields played some awesome draw bowls to snatch a one-shot victory over their quality opponents.
Narre Warren 88 d Cranbourne (3) 58. J. Mulder 20-19, M. Boltong 16-20, S. Burnett 12-27, S. Raiti 10-22.
The Cranny fourth side were the toast of the clubhouse, being the only winning side of the day, defeating their arch-rivals Berwick (5).
Leading all day, Rod Mill’s rink of Jock Morrow, Ray Chapman, and Lindsay Coate finished with a huge 20-shot victory. This inspired the other three rinks to strong wins against a flat and quiet opposition. All rinks got up claiming the full 18 points by smashing the Berwick side by 47 shots.
Cranbourne (4) 102 d Berwick (5) 55. R. Mills 31-11, P. Bibby 24-16, D. O’Neill 24-12, S. Boyd 23-16.
Despite wins at home by the rinks of Allen Skurrie and Bill Plumbe, the fifth side couldn’t manage to overcome a pumped-up Mt Waverley. Similarly a big win of 18 shots in the Cranny sixth side by Kath Dudink’s rink of Scotty DePiazza, Ian Bartley and Joe Byrne wasn’t enough to beat Parkdale’s second side on their slick synthetic green.
Mt Waverley (5) 84 d Cranbourne (5) 75. R. St Ruth 18-25, A. Skurrie 20-19, R. Sorensen 16-23, W. Plumbe 21-17.
Parkdale (2) 98 d Cranbourne (6) 70. K. Dudink 32-14, S. Venville 21-24, O. Stanley 8-25, J. Hanks 9-35.