The finalists for the last four disciplines at the Asia Pacific Championships have been decided in testing conditions this afternoon at Lockleys.

The women’s pairs semi-final between the Philippines and Malaysia had the finish of the tournament, with the Philippines winning a remarkable match with two of the most amazing ends seen at the event. The penultimate end saw the Malaysians go from a 15-22 deficit to a one shot lead after picking up an eight. Philippines Skipper, Rosita Bradborn, moved the shot bowl out of the count and sat her bowl, not once but twice, the second time to pick up a maximum score.

With the crowd buzzing and being drawn to the rink and the Malaysians holding shot, Bradborn has delivered the bowl of a lifetime with her first bowl and driven the jack into the ditch with her bowl finishing resting against the jack in the ditch. The Malaysian skipper was then forced to concede with five bowls still to be played as there was no possible shot that could be played to win the match.

An understandable ecstatic Philippines coach Bill Boyley said “it was sensational.  We were on fire after our 8 in the seventeenth end which put us one up then on the eighteenth, our skip Rosie on her second bowl drove the jack into the ditch with her bowl right next to it making it an unbeatable shot”.

The Philippines will face New Zealand after the Kiwi combination of Val Smith and Jo Edwards smashed Natasha Van Eldik and Karen Murphy 21-9 in the other semi-final. The Black Jacks were never headed, winning the first seven ends to take an insurmountable 13-0 lead.

In the men’s triples Australia defeated the USA by 10 shots 16-6. The USA side scored singles on the first two ends of the game to take an early two shot victory, but then failed to trouble the scorer for the next eight ends with Australia taking an assailable 15-3 lead after 10 ends. The Australian’s will play off for gold against Fiji after they defeated New Zealand by six shots, 15-9. The Kiwis failed to score after holding a 9-3 lead after seven ends, with the Pacific Islanders scoring 12 straight shots to set-up a gold medal clash against the Aussies.

In the women’s triples, Philippines took out another nail-biter against New Zealand by two shots, 12-10. The kiwis jumped out to an early seven shot lead but failed to maintain the scoreboard pressure and never recovered from dropping a five in the eighth end, only scoring two more shots for the rest of the match. Lynsey Armitage led the Australians to a 16-8 victory over Singapore in the other women’s triples match.

 

Dave Edwards from the New Zealand team said of his team’s performance “to be in 50% of the finals is a good thing – it’s a bit disappointing that our triples failed to get up after both the men and women leading in their games at the start only to be run down at the end”

"Still, if you’d told us at the start of the tournament that we could be contenders for gold in half of the finals matches we would have taken it."

In the men’s pairs Australia has secured a finals berth after defeating Fiji 23-12, a six and a five in the sixth and ninth ends respectively setting up the win. They will face their trans-Tasman rivals after the Black Jacks scored a narrow two shot win over Canada in the other semi-final. Tied at 12-all after sixteen ends, the Canadians dropped a three in the penultimate end , with the vocal Canadian support group unable to get their team over the line in the last, picking up only a single.   

Finals play commences tomorrow and Sunday at the Lockleys Bowling Club from 9:00 am.

Finals – Saturday

9:00 am
Men’s pairs – Australia v New Zealand
Women’s triples – Philippines v Australia

2:00 pm
Women’s pairs – Philippines v New Zealand
Men‘s triples – Australia v Fiji

Finals – Sunday

9:00 am –
Men’s fours – Australia v New Zealand
women’s fours – Australia v New Zealand

2:00 pm

Men’s singles – Australia v Malaysia
Women’s singles – Australia v Malaysia