The Voice of Spalding and South Holland
Spalding Indoor Bowls Club ace Jordan Philpott was crowned champion of the Hartlepool Open on Friday.
Philpott’s first round opponent proved to be a tough test, as he beat Mark Johnson from the host club 1.5-0.5 (9-7, 7-7).
The second round against Hayley Robinson (York) was far more comfortable as Philpott won in straight sets 7-3, 8-3.
An all-Lincolnshire clash in the last 16 awaited for Philpott as he faced Scunthorpe’s Paul Johnson.
The Scunthorpe man started the better and took the first set 7-0, before Philpott bounced back to take the second set 7-6 and force a tie break.
The Spalding youngster held his nerve to win the tie break 2-0 and book his place in the quarter-final.
A live draw saw Philpott pitted against Cumbria’s Kevin Harrison in the last eight, where he hit top form to only allow Harrison to score a single shot all game to win in straight sets 9-0, 8-1.
The semi-final was certainly a tense affair, which saw Philpott matched up against current British Isles singles champion Jack Bird (York).
Bird took the first set 8-5 before the Spalding star showed his fighting ability to take the second set 8-1. The match went the distance and Philpott actually found himself on the brink of defeat before taking the tie break 2-1.
In the final, Philpott faced off against home favourite Paul Hartley. Philpott continued his good form to win the final comfortably in straight sets (8-2, 9-2).
For his efforts, Philpott took home the £1,000 first prize and valuable ranking points towards the Race to Potters Grand Finals, which are due to take place on November 22 and 23.
- Sunday saw representatives from Spalding IBC take part in the national finals at Nottingham IBC.
Cousins Chantal and Martin Spencer qualified to the last 16 in the national family pairs. There, they comfortably beat father and son duo Trevor and Josh Halcrow (South Shields).
A positive start saw Chantal and Martin lead 19-2 before the South Shields pair accepted defeat at 21-8 after 14 ends.
In the quarter-final, Chantal and Martin played former champions, mother and son, Wendy and Lewis King from Swale.
The pairing from Swale took an early lead, 5-2 after five ends before Chantal and Martin gained the initiative to lead 11-7 after ten ends. The match was always destined to go the distance which at 15 ends, was level at 16-16
Two singles from Chantal and Martin saw them lead 18-16 going into the last end and they consolidated well to win 18-17.
In the semis, Chantal and Martin faced off against another father and son duo in Peter M Ward and Peter D Ward (Atherley).
A relatively comfortable match saw the Spalding duo win 18-7 and set up a mouth watering clash against Blackpool brothers John and Mark Dawes.
With Mark being the 2018 world men’s singles and pairs champion, Chantal and Martin found them in top form and conceded at 15-7 after 17 ends.
The Spalding pair won £400 in prize money and the runners-up trophy.
- Also at Nottingham on the Sunday was the county under-18 double triples semi-final and final.
Lincolnshire qualified to the semi-final from the northern section of the draw, with the team including Spalding’s Danielle Wild, Nathan Puttrell, Harry Mycock and James Cherry.
Wild, Puttrell and Mycock played as a rink whilst Cherry led for Boston’s Kathryn Rockall and Adam Hodgson.
Unfortunately for the Lincolnshire youngsters, they came up against a strong Somerset team, who eventually went on to beat Leicestershire in the final.
In the semi-final, Mycock’s rink lost 14-15 whilst Hodgson went down 8-24, losing on aggregate 22-39.
Saturday saw Freda Lyon assist in her final junior bowls coaching session as she announced her retirement a number of weeks ago.
A presentation was made by the junior bowlers, parents and fellow coaches for her 18 years’ service of coaching the young bowlers of the club.
- Spalding IBC’s over-60s team played their last game of the season on Thursday as they hosted Sleaford.
At the half way stage, Sleaford were winning comfortably on three rinks and in front on the aggregate.
The match finished 14-3 (110-92) in Sleaford’s favour, with Spalding victorious on two rinks.
The top winning rink for Spalding was skipped by Roger Perkins, with Derek Overton, Rob West and Dennis Wilkinson.
Captains for the day were Graham Hicks and David Lunn.
