THE pennant bowls competition finals began on the weekend where the Mount Gambier Bowls Club was represented in four divisions.
Division 1’s semi-final saw the Blue Lake city’s cross-town rivals Mount Gambier and Mount Gambier RSL Red clash in a hard fought contest at Mount Gambier Bowls Club.
Bryan Vorwerk, Peter Radley, Greg Carpenter and Tony Renzi finished strong to win 28-20 over Graham Ellis’s four.
A thrilling one-shot match was claimed by Gary McIntyre, Steve Farrell, Peter Reppin and Daniel Langdon against the Neil Toben-led RSL side.
It was not be a clean-sweep for the home side as Tony Bowditch’s men could not keep up with the opposing Rex Hein combination to go down 20-25.
However, the deficit was reduced enough to ensure Mount Gambier claimed a narrow 74-70 overall victory and advance through to the Division 1 grand final.
In Division 2 Mount Gambier travelled to Naracoorte RSL to play Kingston in another evenly matched meeting.
David Babb’s team managed a draw, but a pair of four-point losses on the other rinks meant the Mount Gambier side returned home with a 68-60 loss and finished the season on a disappointing note.
Division 3 squared off against Millicent at Penola for a place in the preliminary final.
A convincing victory from Jim Butchart, Dennis Matthews, Gary Hocking and Scott Wilson was enough to cover the two losses on the other rinks and just defeat Millicent 81-78.
Division 4 played Kalangadoo in Naracoorte and were no match for the opposition who dominated each rink to triumph 88-45 and end the Mount Gambier sides campaign.
