Katanning Bowling Club finishes season off on a high with shock victory at League 4s tournament

Katanning Bowling Club has won the women’s and men’s divisions of the Great Southern Bowling League fours round-robin competition for the first time in recent history.

Sitting last in the pennants competition in the women’s league heading into the event, the Katanning teams caused a major upset by taking home the crown in both divisions.

“We are quite low down on the pennants, we haven’t been winning, so our performance on the weekend was a shock not only to us but to all of the other clubs,” Katanning ladies’ captain Bernadette Bradley said.

“We were euphoric, it was very exciting as we were not expecting to win.”’

The round-robin fours event was played over two days at Dumbleyung Bowls Club for the women in late February and Wagin Bowls Club for the men in early March. The Katanning ladies side finished with three wins and a score of +26.

Dumbleyung finished in second place with three wins and a loss to score +2.

The men’s team went unbeaten over the two-day event and recorded five wins with a score of +27.

Bradley said the last couple of games were incredibly exciting as the competition was extremely close.

“Going into the last game of the last round there were three teams on three wins, so whoever won with the most shots up was going to be the winner,” Katanning team member Pauline Todd said.

“We were trying to hide our thrill while we were playing our final game because we hadn’t got it yet but we ended up winning 28-4 which was very unexpected.”

Todd said the win was great for the ladies as they as a club have limited numbers and have not won a tournament for many years.

“It was a great surprise that is why we were so chuffed, because we really don’t have the strongest players in the league by a long shot.”

Katanning’s ladies side was comprised of Dawn Jensen, Pauline Todd, Marj Winstanley and was skippered by Kerrie O’Halloran who only played half the tournament due to illness, so was replaced by Bernadette Bradley for the second day. The men’s side from Katanning was made up of Ernie Maples, Wally O’Halloran, Damien Perrett and Brian Perrett.

Ms Bradley said she thought the fact the Katanning Country Club has recently installed the new synthetic bowling greens may have assisted them on the path to victory in Dumbleyung.

The singles competition was also held over the two days with Kojonup’s Paula Reid winning from Karen Ward of Dumbleyung.

The men’s singles winner was Richard Schinzig from Moodiarrup.

The social bowls competition is set to round out the season this Friday night, with the final roll up taking place at the Katanning Country Club.