Bolte plays 800th pennant game

SATURDAY’S bowls saw City Oval celebrate the achievement of Charlie Bolte chalking up his eight hundredth pennant game of bowls for City Oval; the second-highest number of pennant games played in the club’s history.

“I started out in 1976 and with 18 rounds of Pennant games in the season along with many finals I played over the years the number of games I played just accumulated,” said the quiet yet proud Charlie Bolte. To celebrate the occasion his Division 5 side recorded a comfortable win away against BMS with the team heading the divisional ladder with 6 wins so far in the season.

Another club achievement on the day were the Coxall family where grandfather Ron, father Tony and grandson Max all played at the home venue on the same day.

The club’s division 3 side had a comfortable win at home on Saturday against Bungaree with the two rinks of John Peddlesden and Ian Robinson scoring 13 and 12 shots up respectively over their opponents, enabling an overall win by 22 shots.

This places the side in third position behind Beaufort and Invermay and they will travel to Daylesford this Saturday where they can expect to be challenged by the home side who will be looking to recover from their loss against Invermay to stay in the hunt for the possibility to go into the four as the season progresses.

Unfortunately for the club, City Oval lost its other two home matches with Division 6 going down to the strong Webbcona side where Ray Creelman’s rink scored another strong win with 23 shots up and supported by Daryl Muller’s rink finishing the afternoon 11 shots up.

Nevertheless, the City Oval side remains in sixth position in the Division 6 ladder. On Saturday the team travel to Beaufort and will need to put in a strong performance to challenge for progression up the ladder in a tight competition where there is only 10 points separating fourth placed Beaufort and eighth placed Smeaton.

City Oval’s Division 7 side playing at home went down to the visiting Ballarat North side who played strongly all afternoon with the visiting team holding onto fourth position having recorded their fourth win for the season.

Playing at home, Ballarat North’s Division 2 side managed to win through on Saturday against Clunes and securely hold onto the second spot on the ladder behind the strong performing Buninyong side that heads the ladder undefeated on six wins.

“I thought Clunes played well against us on Saturday and managed our synthetic green and the strong windy conditions well and it was a close game across three of the rinks but fortunately it was Amy Newman’s rink that carried the day and being 15 shots up this secured the win for us,” said Ballarat North’s Michael Clark.

“Our match this coming Saturday at Ballan will definately be a bit of a road trip. The Ballan side dominated the division 3 competition last season.”

After last season’s Premiership win the Ballan side has been promoted into the Division 2 competition and is currently placed 5th on the ladder in a close contest for either third or fourth position.

In another family achievement, the McLean family – Kevin (father) and sons Scott and Adam who all play in BMS’ division 1 side together – travelled to Ballarat East and lost by a single shot to the host club.

This leaves BMS in fifth position on the ladder by a single point behind Linton and the side now travels to Webbcona on Saturday where they have the opportunity to challenge to sneak back in the four if they can manage a strong performance on the day.