Underdogs picking up points in Boston Indoor Bowls Club Evening League

The latest week of bowling in the Evening League at Boston Indoor Bowling Club witnessed several matches in both divisions where the points were secured by the less fancied teams.

In the Orchard Health Group Division One, three teams - Royal Mail, Cosmos and Central - all had their best results since October to perk up their fortunes as the mid-point of the season beckons.

Royal Mail shared the points equally with A40.

They went ahead initially on both rinks before A40 pulled the scores back to parity.

Keith Sharp, the Mailer’s skip, then negotiated his rink to a convincing win, 21-11, while Sue Hoyles, for A40, kept the pressure on their opponents to run out winners by 23-13.

The points for the aggregate were shared.

Cosmos beat IBC 4-2.

For Cosmos, the rink of Dave Fox, Barbara Pell and Jean Thompson took the lead on the sixth end of their match and then pulled away to dominate the scoring and win 26-14 at the end.

The other rink was close for 12 ends before Dave Gill for IBC skipped them to win 21-10.

The aggregate went to Cosmos by just one shot, thereby collecting the extra points for only the second time this season.

Central saw off Nomads 6-0.

Peter Copeland, supported by Alan Bennett and Sandra Copeland, had a very good win by 21-6.

Brian Hunn’s rink were always ahead, but the game was much closer, finishing 15-12.

Parthians, in ninth place, took two points off third-placed Holland Fen, when Phil Markham’s rink won 20-14, but only after they had started slowly and trailed 2-10 after the first 10 ends.

Subsequent scores of 4, 5, 3 and 4 over the next seven ends helped seal their win.

The second rink was won by Jim Gott’s Fenmen, 26-8.

Invaders beat an in-form Breakaways team 6-0 and, with Eastenders not contesting the last two rounds, moved up to the top of the table.

Rod West’s rink were dominant in winning 32-8.

The second rink of Nathan Dunnington, Sandra Tebbs and skip Scott Whyers had to work hard to run out 20-16 winners.

They started well to lead 9-5 after 8 ends, before Breakaways briefly snatched the lead with scores of 5 and 1 in two ends.

Invaders then had the better finish to take victory.

In the T&B Containers Division Two there were 4-2 wins for Vikings in seventh against Dynamics in second, and for U3 in ninth against fourth-placed Hotspurs.

Vikings and U3 remain in the same positions, but both Dynamics and Hotspurs slipped slightly as a result.

John Millership skipped his Vikings rink to a very good win by 27-11.

Vikings held a 5 shot advantage on the second rink after 10 ends, but the Dynamics team of Graham Wilkinson, supported by Josie and Pete Issacs, finished more strongly by winning the last seven ends, 8 shots to 2, to take the game 13-12.

U3’s recent form continued this week; that’s the ninth week consecutively that they have taken points away from a match.

Both rinks were taken by the winning team getting an early lead, then building on it steadily throughout the game.

Jack Carr’s rink won by 22-9 for U3, and Rob Druce’s rink won 19-11 for Hotspurs.

The points for the aggregate score went to U3 with a five-shot advantage.

Leaders in this division, Golfers, took all the points off Shipmates by winning 21-14 and 19-13.

In each case they established their advantage early and were never headed.

The Burtons moved into second spot by beating Phantom 27-6 and 20-8 on the two rinks.

Amateurs beat Vectors 6-0 in two closely fought games and moved up two places to third.

The final margins were 18-11 for Tony Nixon and 15-10 for Ron Spence.

The Patriarchs rink took two points off both Autos and, in a catch-up match, Vectors. Against Autos, the score was close at 9-8 at the half-way point and in the end Mick Rate’s team won a tight contest 18-14.

Vectors held a slight advantage at half-way in their encounter with Patriarchs, but were well beaten by the end, 24-13.

Patriarchs are now three points adrift of Vectors and only one place behind them.