Round up of this weeks competitions at Bowls North Harbour – Lindsay Knight

  • July 26, 2020

  Promising Warkworth bowler Michelle Macdonald joined husband Stewart as a centre title-holder when she won the North Harbour champion of champion one-to-five-year women’s singles on her home green at the weekend.

 In the final she showed superb drawing skills to beat a formidable opponent Millie Nathan 21-17. That gave the family some consolation after Stewart had come close to adding to his centre tally the previous weekend in the men’s champion of champion triples.

 Stewart, who won centre titles in 2007 and 2019, went down by just one shot in that final against Orewa.

 A high standard of play in the two one-to-five titles decided at the weekend was reflected in Michelle’s win over Millie Nathan, with the latter already in her short career having gained two open centre titles as well as playing for the centre’s top representative side.

 Yet Millie in her four games never had one easy contest, starting with her first round 21-17 win over Takapuna’s Trish Hardy.

 Warkworth almost captured both junior titles with Scott Wilson missing out in the final to Orewa’s Matthew Higginson, who having cruised into the final continued his impressive form to win 21-14.

 But it was still a fine effort by Wilson, who started the tournament with a 21-17 win over a strong Mairangi Bay player David Payne and then comfortably won his semi-final over Hobsonville’s Aaron White. That was a surprising margin as earlier White had ousted the well-performed Takapuna bowler, Jerry Belcher, 21-10.

Meanwhile, Shane Gibson made a welcome return to competitive bowls to help his Birkenhead Stingers team win the men’s Winter Cup competition. A powerful line-up of Gibson, Lionel Drew, Peter Nathan and Keith Burgess went through the round-robin unbeaten to beat another Birkenhead team, the Bullets.

 The Orewa Gold team of Jan Harrison, Christeen Dalzell, Kerin Roberts and Elaine McClintock, with Judy Beachen substituting on the final day, won the women’s Winter Cup, with Takapuna Gold the runners-up.