Breakers secure title
The league and individual merit titles were settled in the one session held over the weekend in the Manx Petroleum sponsored Outdoor Winter League Bowling Club as Rule Breakers racked up their ninth maximum, before beating their closest rivals to open an unassailable points margin.
Challengers Seven-Up could only stand and watch as the now seven-time champions Rule Breakers swept aside Mooragh Lakers. They won all six games and left them trailing with their lowest total of the campaign.
The contest for the Derek Killey memorial trophy was also brought to a conclusion in this fixture as Lakers’ Jenny Moore surrendered a slender lead she held over her Uncle John Kennish (Breakers), who also won this award in 2008.
Jenny however is still in a good position to collect the ladies title and finish in a creditable second overall. Her closest challenger is Margaret Tasker (Louie’s Angels) who is the only woman to have gone one better and won the overall merit crown, which was in 2012.
John completed his season with just one defeat and a loss of just two points. In third and fourth at present are another two previous winners, Glynn Hargraves (Breakers) and Jordan Cain (Seven-Up). The latter with four games left to maybe improve his position.
Getting back to the action, in the second contest of the afternoon, Lakers picked themselves up and put a large dent in any hopes Seven-Up still had of catching their rivals. The northern outfit won a close battle in which the losers dropped 20 points and left their title challenge hanging by a thread.
A large crowd had gathered as the leading two went head-to-head in a fixture that Seven-Up had to win convincingly.
Breakers however were in no mood to relinquish their hold on a shield they have now won for seven out of the last eight seasons and ran out clear winners, dropping just six points to finish on an average of 119.4.
This may have brought the league title challenge to an early conclusion, but there are still some close battles for positions further down the table, along with individual team merit winners to be settled over the final few weeks.
Results for Sunday, February 15: Rule Breakers 126 (6) Alan Moore and Stefan Kelly, Mooragh Lakers 88 (0) Rob Monk; Mooragh Lakers 109 (3) Jenny Moore, Seven-Up 106 (3) Jordan Cain; Seven-Up 106 (2) Kevin Quirk, Rule Breakers 120 (4) Dave Kelly and Mark Kneen.
Prior to Sunday’s contests, two round robins were held and in the midweek session the pairing of Philippa Taylor and Mike Skelly finished ahead of Pauline Whorrall and Jo Smith.
While in the triples group Bernie McPhee, along with Bernie and Jean Thackrah emerged as winners, with Brian Needham, Elaine McElroy and Alec Taylor settling for second.
It was a similar pattern in Saturday’s event, with the threesome of Derek Clarke, Steve Parker and Shirley Corrin pipping Jo Smith, Tricia Bull and Bernie McPhee after a roll-up.
Whilst victorious in the doubles were Steve Moore and Caroline Whitehead, with second place being taken by Derek Cadamy and Peter Hughes.
Entries are now being taken for the club championship, which will be held over the weekend of March 14, and 15.