Seniors get league campaign back on track with victory

Their match against Old Bleach had been brought forward due to Commonwealth Games commitments and the Ballymena men got the better of their local rivals on a heavy green to claim 6 of the 7 points on offer from an 84-72 win and get their league campaign back on track.

On rink 1 Steven Shields, Sammy Allen, Andrew Morrison and Andy Kyle made a decent start in their game against J Talbot and with 8 ends completed they held a 4 shot lead.

A brace of 2’s got the visitors back on level terms but the game changed in favour of the Old Bleach rink over the next couple of ends when they picked up counts of 5 and 4 to take charge of the game. With 4 ends to go the margin was still 9 shots and by the end the visitors had extended their advantage to win by 27 shots to 15.

There was a marathon game on rink 2 where Michael Wilson, David Duncan, Andi Duncan and Jim Baker took on N Booth. The game started at 6.30pm and concluded about 4 hours later.

During that time the Ballymena men won 7 of the first 10 ends but 2 counts of 4 shots on the 4th and 9th ends kept the Old Bleach rink in the game with the Ballymena men in front by 11 shots to 10. Baker’s men kicked on over the next 5 ends and extended their lead to 7 shots but the visitors were not going to give up without a fight and with 2 ends remaining the deficit was down to 3 shots.

That was as good as it got for the Bleach rink as 2 singles gave the Braid rink a hard fought victory by 22 shots to 17.

James Gaston, Graham Wilson, Steven Falls and Nigel Robinson settled down quickly in their game against B Magrath on rink 3 and with 7 ends played they were in the driving seat with the score board reading 12-3 in their favour.

The visiting rink actually won 9 of the remaining 14 ends but the Braid men were able to restrict them to 7 singles and two 2’s but a count of 5 shots on the 12th end made sure that the Ballymena rink were always able to maintain a healthy margin with the final score 22-14.

There was little to choose between J R Nicholl, Mark Torrington, Alistair Coleman and Steven Coleman in their game against M Nutt on rink 4 and with 8 ends played the Braid men led by 6 shots to 5.

The Ballymena rink took charge of the game over the next 6 ends when they outscored the visitors by 12 shots to 5 and 4 ends later the advantage had increased to 10 shots. The rinks shared 6 shots over the remaining ends which gave the Ballymena men victory by 25 shots to 15.

This week the Seniors are involved in the Irish Cup with Ballywalter the visitors and then on Tuesday night they travel to Ewarts in the league.