East Lothian 7/6 – Scotlawn Bowls

The East Lothian gents entertained West Fife at Castlepark in the Andrew Hamilton Trophy at the weekend in what was a crucial game with the Fifers sitting two points above the Garden County. In another exhilarating game that went to the wire for the second week running the men produced another one shot victory.

East Lothian made their now customary slow start to the game and found themselves seven down at the halfway stage of the game and by the fifteenth end the signs were ominous with the deficit now at double figures. However, with three ends to play the gents had reduced the deficit to three shots and then kept the charge on to level the scores with once again only the rink of John McCrorie on the green. The East Lothian rink lay a good shot from early on and despite the West Fife back ends best efforts to draw the shot it remained to give the Garden County the slender win they required. The rink of Malcolm Higgenbotham made a telling contribution over the last five ends as they outscored their opponents 8-2 while despite suffering a heavy defeat in a bad day at the office the rink of Joe Mower’s four shots finish over the last two ends were also crucial. Final rink scores were as follows: J Mower 9 D Robertson 30; M Higgenbotham 19 D Junior 18; B Young 17 R McFarlane 19; B Mellors 27 A Kennedy 11; A Marshall 23 C Watson 17 and J McCrorie 17 P Brown 16.
On Saturday the gents welcome neighbours and rivals Edinburgh & Leith to EL Co-op with the winners looking to finish second to a rampant West Lothian team who are yet to taste defeat. This is sure to be a noisy and tight encounter from start to finish. As the section stands West Lothian have 8 points, Edinburgh & Leith have 6 while Midlothian, Stirling, East Lothian and West Fife all have 4 points. The following line-up has been selected for this crucial game: D Stevenson, K Dodds, D Riva & B Young (Skip)
R Shields, G Inglis, C Valentine & C Glen S Thomson, C McLeod, G Dodds & A Marshall MBE A Martin, S Johnston, M Higgenbotham & B Mellors K Cunningham, M Osborne, G White & J McCrorie C Johnston, G Baillie, W Dunleavey & S Morgan Reserves: S Greenan, M McCormack, D Young, T Young, S Anderson & A Burt

In the tie of the round in the East Coast Carpets League Division One last Friday Port Seton assigned Haddington to their first defeat of the season and in style too as they sent their opponents home with no points. This result has opened the league up and allowed EL Co-op to go top of the league following their impressive 8-0 win over Elphinstone. Haddington and Prestongrange sit joint second two points behind after the Grange continued their strong start to the season with a 6-2 win over Tranent. Winton returned from East Linton with a maximum eight points in perhaps the shock of the night while in the battle of the bottom two Dunbar once again lost 2-6 for the sixth time this season at home to Castlepark.
This week the new table toppers EL Co-op visit Castlepark while the tie of the round is at Haddington where Prestongrange are the visitors. Port Seton will be looking to back up their win over Haddington when they visit Winton. Elphinstone entertain East Linton where both teams will be looking to bounce back from defeats while hapless Dunbar will be looking for their first win of the season when they travel to Tranent.

The route to Ayr has begun for all bowlers in East Lothian now that the Gents competitions commenced this week with the preliminary round played on Monday and the first round proper on Wednesday. Updates on all Gents, Seniors and Ladies will appear as they reach the final stages due to be played out on Sunday 16th of June.

The East Lothian Under 25 team was in Scottish Cup action last Sunday when they travelled to Bellahouston to play Glasgow. The team had two winning rinks and two losing rinks but unfortunately lost out by fourteen shots. Rink scores were as follows: D French 17 J Collins 13; C Darling 14 R Langden 12; R Cochrane 7 C Craig 15 & J Burnett 13 S MCGillvary 25
The team are back in league action this week when they travel to Auchtermuchty to face Fife.Robbie Buchanan, Iona Leith, Chris Brock & Reece Cochrane (skip and captain) Cammy Shaw, Melissa Penman, Jack Ferguson & Danny Stevenson Peter Gray, Rhys French, Robbie Shields & Calum Darling Kieran Dodds, Daniel Peart, John Robertson & Declan French Ewan Leith, Kieran Whitson, Calvert Allison & Dean Riva Chris Gordon, Beth Riva, Dean French & James Burnett Lewis Whitson reserve Cars required and all to report for 1:30

Meanwhile the youths of East Lothian have been busy bowling in their Monday night league campaign and on Sunday took part in the first knockout competition of the season at Ormiston in the play-off for the Ann Dennis Triples. The winning triple came from Ormiston and were Abi McNeill, Sam Niven and Lucy Walker who now go forward to represent East Lothian in the finals day to be held at North British Bowling Club in Glasgow on the 7th of July.