Kyabram is back inside the top four of the Goulburn Valley playing area’s division-one midweek pennant competition after winning its second game of the three-match season.
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After being beaten by top-team Shepparton Golf a week earlier, Kyabram was back on track with a 32-shot win against bottom-team Euroa. In doing so it improved its ranking from sixth to fourth.
Euroa, which had won just one of six rinks in two lead-up matches, secured one rink win in the match — which preceded yesterday’s competition-wide bye for the Victorian Open schedule.
When competition resumes, on Tuesday, November 29, Kyabram faces fifth-ranked Seymour.
Seymour is five behind outside the four after losing by one shot to top-team Shepparton Golf, the fifth-ranked team winning two of the three rinks.
Shepparton Golf is the only unbeaten team in the eight-club division one competition.
A five-shot opening-round win against Shepparton Park for the Kyabram outfit was followed by a thrashing against last season’s runner-up, Shepparton Golf.
After two matches, the Euroa win was the third of the year following two washouts. Kyabram lost to Golf by 28 shots, losing all three rinks.
Golf’s Robert Betson, the top skip of 2021-22, was back on track against Kyabram after losing his first match of the season.
Jennifer Dixon, ranked fifth on the skipper’s ladder last year, drew her opening-round match before losing by 19 against Golf. She was back on track against Euroa with a 17-shot win.
• After registering its first win of the division-two midweek season, Stanhope was slumped to eighth on the ladder with a loss to Kyabram.
Kyabram moved inside the top four with the 31-shot round-seven match, now having a having a 4-1 win/loss record for the season.
Stanhope lost in successive weeks to Shepparton Golf and Mooroopna before taking a win against fifth-ranked East Shepparton, which had won two of its three games before the round-six contest.
Stanhope lost rounds one, four and five to no-results.
Kyabram was third on the ladder after six rounds, having scored wins against Seymour, Mooroopna Golf and Tallygaroopna before being blown away in its November 8 bout with Shepparton Golf.
Stanhope now sits eighth on the 10-team ladder, but is only 20 pennant points outside the top four with 11 rounds of Tuesday competition remaining.
Before the win against East Shepparton it had only earned one pennant point — apart from an equal share of points from washouts — when Jenny Crilly drew with Mooroopna’s Lyn Thatcher.
Kyabram’s Graeme King, Helen Chapman and Philip Denham have combined for a terrific start to the season, winning three matches before a 17-shot defeat to Trevor Dunlop’s Shepparton Golf rink in the round-six meeting.
They opened the season with an eight-shot win, with Dossie Grills as lead, then won 34-15 in round two and by 13 in round three. They returned to form against Stanhope with a 21-shot win.
• Kyabram has dropped to third on the Goulburn Valley playing area’s division-three ladder after losing to Seymour VRI last week.
Kyabram was only one point behind ladder-leader VRI before the match at Seymour, the two teams having both won three matches.
VRI has had one more washout round, but Kyabram’s round two draw with Numurkah (63 shots apiece) means it was slightly behind before Tuesday.
VRI won the match by five shots, winning only one rink as another was tied and Nardo Di Petta won the final rink.
Numurkah has droped to fifth on the ladder, two points behind fourth-ranked Shepparton Park.
The round-seven match pitted the top skip in the competition so far this year, Kyabram’s Darryl Gade, against seventh-ranked Wayne Noonan. The pair tied on 23 apiece, with the division’s number one skip Joe Purcell beaten Jan McFadyen by 15 shots.
Gade has bowled alongside lead Jenny Tenace, second Howard Tonkin and third John Fanning for 19-shot, 11-shot, two-shot and 15-shot wins this season.
• Kyabram sits fourth on the division-four midweek ladder after a 22-shot win against bottom-team Seymour.
The win comes on the back of a 19-shot win against ninth-ranked Merrigum, a week earlier. The team is in for a shock when competition returns on November 29, facing unbeaten ladder-leader Alexandra.
Despite its winless season (it has one draw) the Merrigum team is solidly represented in the top bowler rankings, courtesy of skip John Firmer’s unbeaten four-game run.
Firmer is the fourth-ranked skip in the competition, having won by two shots in the opening round with Clive Baxter, Maurren Shepherd and Barry Parsons in tow.
The team drew with East Shepparton in round two, Firmer leading Jim Arthur, Noreen Earl and Shepherd to an eight-shot win.
A two-shot loss, overall, in round three to Murchison saw Firmer dominate his opposition 25-8. He then had a 17-15 result against Kyabram’s Geoffrey Hocking.
Shepherd is the eight-ranked bowler after six rounds in the division-five competition, with Firmer ninth-ranked overall.
Merrigum only lost to top-team Alexandra by 14 shots last week.
Kyabram’s best skip this season is Geoff Coad (ranked ninth with three wins from four games).
Coad beat Merrigum’s Joe Chant by seven shots in round six and had a seven-shot win in the opening round of the season. He backed that up with a nine-shot win in the Seymour victory.
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