Scotland’s national champions captured four of the 11 titles up for grabs in yesterday’s climax to the indoor bowls British Isles Championships played at Stanley IBC in County Durham and three of them were delivered in magnificent style by six stars from the Midlothian IBC.
Stacey Laidlaw ruled supreme in the ladies Junior Singles and the 25 year old is celebrating a glorious double having also skipped Kelly McDougall, Alison Plenderleith, and Gaynor Duncan to success in the Fours. Two high profile international players in the shape of Ronnie Duncan and Colin Walker represented the Scotland banner in the Gents Pairs and the icon figures from The Dalkeith Stadium performed heroically to capture the British Crown. “Winning three titles of British Isles status on the same day and at this high level of competition comes into the wildest dream category and the members of Midlothian IBC are ecstatic by the achievement”, said spokesperson Frank Gray. “We are talking here about accomplished players with strong winning mentality’s and as national champions they did travel to Stanley with high expectations but it takes something special to come out on top against England, Wales, Ireland, and Channel Islands.” Laidlaw had her physical stamina and mental attitude challenged by two finals the first of which saw her skip her rink against the Ireland champions spearheaded by Sandra Baillie. Carding 4 shots on the opening end was an encouraging start for Laidlaw and Co who progressed to 9-2 then the Scottish champions asserted their authority with a powerful acceleration from 9-4 to 19-4 culminating in a commanding 20-11 victory. Laidlaw had a little time to recover from her 21-end exertions before going head to head with Chloe Wordingham of England for the Junior Singles title but whatever the magic potent was she preceded to give a super-charged performance. The 10-end score showed 18-0 in favour of Laidlaw who had zipped to that figure with a sizzling run of 3, 3, 2, 1, 3, 1, 1, 1, 1, 2 and with tiredness not an issue she confirmed her supremacy with a truly fantastic 21-5 victory.
Meanwhile the morning play also featured the final of the gents Pairs with Duncan and Walker facing a challenge from Wales champions Jordon Davies and Phil Carpenter. The opening exchanges were ding-dong in terms of the lead changing hands often however by end 16 Wales had not long carded a mighty 5 and were holding the upper hand at 17-13.
The next three-ends were special and a game-changing spell for the Duncan/
Walker partnership with the Scotland champions exploding to 23 with a 4, 4, 2 blitz then strong defensive play saw them clinch a 23-21 victory. John Fleming of Inverclyde – who piped Daniel Gormley of Bainfield 21-20 in the recent national final – made it a Junior Singles double for Scotland with a 21-15 win over Ryan Atkins of England.
Midlothian IBC have their eyes set on landing the gents Scottish Cup title for a fourth time in their history and reached the 2015 quarterfinals with a 73-66 win over fellow premier league club Aberdeen at Dundee. The rink results were, Colin Walker 20 G Forbes 9; David Peacock 26 A McKay 18; Billy Peacock 15 E Curran 20; Ronnie Duncan 12 M Stephen 19.