	{"id":102591,"date":"2026-02-20T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-02-19T17:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/mcivortimes\/?p=102591"},"modified":"2026-02-18T20:49:14","modified_gmt":"2026-02-18T09:49:14","slug":"bowlers-fight-to-stay-in-title-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/mcivortimes\/sport\/bowlers-fight-to-stay-in-title-race\/","title":{"rendered":"Bowlers fight to stay in title race"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>HEATHCOTE will fight to stay in the Bendigo Campaspe Goldfields bowls Division 2 premiership race when it plays Kangaroo Flat in Saturday&#8217;s preliminary final.<\/p>\n<p>The Saints and Roos will clash on the Bendigo East greens in Lansell Street from 1.30pm.<\/p>\n<p>The most recent hit-out between these teams was in round 12 at Heathcote where the Kangaroos romped to a 91-60 victory.<\/p>\n<p>Heathcote could not halt Strathfieldsaye&#8217;s charge to a 93-64 victory in last Saturday&#8217;s second semi-final at Golden Square.<\/p>\n<p>Scores were level at half-time, but the Kookaburras took control.<\/p>\n<p>Chris Morcom 24 d R. Hayes 22, Maurice Lee 13 lt S. James 16, A. Luxford 16 lt B. Probert 18, Bill Gardiner 11 lt K. Toomey 37.<\/p>\n<p>The Chris Morcom-skipped rink was level after 10 ends and scored six shots on the next end.<\/p>\n<p>Although Strathfieldsaye won the last two ends, Morcom claimed a two-shot win.<\/p>\n<p>In a low-scoring match, Maurice Lee&#8217;s rink was down by two shots after 11 ends.<\/p>\n<p>Lee won two of the last three ends to cut the final margin to just three shots.<\/p>\n<p>Adam Luxford&#8217;s rink won the first four ends, but then lost six of the next seven ends as the Kookaburras held a five-shot lead on the 11th end.<\/p>\n<p>The Saints fought back strongly.<\/p>\n<p>Despite scoring four shots on the last end, Luxford&#8217;s rink was defeated by two shots.<\/p>\n<p>Bill Gardiner&#8217;s rink won six of the first seven ends to open up an eight-shot margin.<\/p>\n<p>The Toomey-led rink from Strathfieldsaye then dominated play to win by 26 shots.<\/p>\n<p>In the first semi played on adjacent greens at Golden Square, it was the Kangaroos who beat South Bendigo by 17 shots.<\/p>\n<p>Heathcote Bowls Club&#8217;s singles championships were played last Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>In the women&#8217;s final, Eileen O&#8217;Brien defeated Ilona Hutterer. The men&#8217;s championship was won by Peter Zander and Adam Luxford was runner-up.<\/p>\n<p>A field of nine braved hot conditions on 11 February to play three games of pairs and triples.<\/p>\n<p>Winners were Rod Hanson (s) and Chris Lawrance on three wins, 47 points, +44 shots.<\/p>\n<p>Runners-up were Dave Thomas (s) and John Hepburn on one win, a draw, 28 points, +4 shots.<\/p>\n<p>The jackpot was not won.<\/p>\n<p>The grand final of Tuesday night social bowls was played last Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p>The best pennant player vote count was held Thursday night.<\/p>\n<p>More teams are urgently needed for the invitation fours tournament on Sunday 1 March at 10am.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>HEATHCOTE will fight to stay in the Bendigo Campaspe Goldfields bowls Division 2 premiership race when it plays Kangaroo Flat in Saturday&#8217;s preliminary final. The Saints and Roos will clash on the Bendigo East greens in Lansell Street from 1.30pm. The most recent hit-out between these teams was in round 12 at Heathcote where the [&#8230;]<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"btn btn-secondary understrap-read-more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/mcivortimes\/sport\/bowlers-fight-to-stay-in-title-race\/\">Read More&#8230;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":215,"featured_media":102594,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-102591","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.7 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>Bowlers fight to stay in title race - McIvor Times<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Heathcote battles Kangaroo Flat in Bendigo Campaspe Goldfields Division 2 preliminary final as club announces singles champions and upcoming events.\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/timesnewsgroup.com.au\/mcivortimes\/sport\/bowlers-fight-to-stay-in-title-race\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Bowlers fight to stay in title race - 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