Playing Ditch Weight

Congratulations to Sheila and Cliff Traynor on qualifying for the State Finals of the Mixed Pairs Championships. This event has state-wide qualification games with 32 teams to play in the State Championships at Dubbo in March 2024.

The qualifying rounds for this area were played at Temora last weekend. Six teams were drawn into two sections of three teams with the section winners to play off for the qualifying spot.

Unfortunately a team from Narrandera had to withdraw on Saturday morning due to illness of one of the players. In this section Sheila and Cliff Traynor defeated Bec Pilmore and Josh Clouten (Wagga RSL) 23–17 to become the section winners.

In the other section John and Kate Cooper defeated Madison Hazell and Steven Houting (Junee) 17–15, Fiona Hartwig and Tony Parkes (West Wyalong) defeated Madison and Steven 34–5 and Fiona and Tony defeated John and Kate 23–9.

The final between Fiona and Tony and Sheila and Cliff was a very close contest with only a small difference in scores throughout. Going into the last end the score was 14–all and with 1 shot on this end Sheila and Cliff qualified for the State Finals.

Play at home on Thursday afternoon saw 26 players involved. Harold Anderson and Russell Boyd claimed the vouchers with a big margin of 22 shots.

Other winners were Milan Brankovic and John Cooper – 16 shots, John Bokkerink, Andrew Hutchison and Glen Benson – 11 shots, Albert Carter and Tom Preston – 9 shots, Alan Langford and Steven Hankins – 6 shots and Brian Christie and Cliff Traynor – 1 shot.

On Saturday afternoon there were 22 players on the green.

Scott Douglas and Jono Watson were the winners of the vouchers with a margin of 16 shots.

The other winning teams and their margins were Steve Walsh and Les Fanning (13 shots), Alan Langford, Greg Woods and Tony Ruhl (8 shots), Harold Anderson and Colin Chapman (3 shots) and Glen Seward and Peter Watts (1 shot).

In the Guy Pickering Charity Challenge on Tuesday night TGs were the winners with 16 points and on Thursday night four of the winning teams scored 14 points. After a count back the night’s winners were 3G Mac Attack.

On Sunday this weekend Jonathon Watson, Damien Miller and David Quigley will play their first games in the National Finals of the BPL Cup at the Pine Rivers club in Queensland. They will be one of two teams from NSW to contest the finals. In a rare accomplishment the team will be playing in the National Finals for the second year in a row.

We wish them well in this event.

Also this weekend will see the finals of the Zone 8 Pairs Championships played at Wagga RSL. Unfortunately, this clashes with the BPL Cup Finals mentioned above so that Damien Miller and David Quigley had to withdraw from the Zone 8 event.

Good luck to Geoff Holt and Peter Watts who will be playing in the Senior Division and to Brian Christie and Denis Rosen and Michael Webb and Glen Benson in the Open Reserve Division.

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