
Pride of place goes to 16 year old Baylee van Steijn who continued her remarkable progress on her way to the top of her sport. Two years ago she finished fourth in the junior championships; last year she won bronze and this year she went one better and won silver. It was an almost flawless performance from Baylee as she won her five round robin games before winning her semi final 18-13. If you tuned into Bowls Canada’s live stream you would have seen the second part of her semi final and the whole of the final.
After a slow start in the final Baylee rallied (the commentator on the stream said she must have been encouraged by the tweet I sent lol) but eventually lost 18-8 to Jordan Kos of Saskatchewan. Baylee is pictured receiving her medal from Dartmouth MP Darren Fisher. Brother Ben was not so fortunate in the boys championship. In the round robin he finished with a 4-3 record to finish fourth but only the top two qualified for the semi final. There was gold for Ontario though as Owen Kirby from the Heritage Greens club in Kitchener won the boys championship.
Two teams from Cobourg competed in the Ontario ladies senior championships in Almonte on August 1st. There are no easy games at this level and neither team managed to qualify from their pool. Nonetheless there was some excellent play from them. The team of Dianne Hawryszko, Kathleen Shirley and Nan Hendren gave the eventual gold winners from Ancaster a fright. Leading by four points going into the last end they gave up five in their final game. The team of Carol Dewey, Louisa Arthur and Mary Thibault was the most inexperienced and after tying their opening game they nearly had a famous victory over Willowdale. Two down going into the final end they were sitting with three second bowls but just could not remove the counter from their opponents. Willowdale went on to win silver.
After their exertions in Almonte two of the ladies, Carol Dewey and Kathleen Shirley played with Ann Tough in a ladies’ tournament in Pickering on Thursday August 3rd. After winning their first game the efforts of the week caught up with them and they lost their second game and were out of the prize money.
Carol and Kathleen were back in action at the club’s Windmill tournament on Saturday August 6th as were Dianne Hawryszko and Louisa Arthur. Dianne had some compensation for her loss at the seniors as she skipped her team to victory, ably supported by vice Terry Sutcliffe and lead Melanie Duras
The club Windmill tournament was sponsored by Miracle Ear Canada and by the Cobourg Short Mat Bowling Club. If you wonder why it is called the Windmill tournament it is because in short mat bowling (which many members play at the Cobourg Community Centre in the winter) the bowls have to be rolled around a small windmill placed in the centre of the mat, hence the name of this tournament..
Twelve teams played three eight end games and most games were very close. One exception was Dianne’s team’s first game which they won 12-3 but their second game was won on an extra end tie breaker and their final game was 7-6.
The only other team with three wins was mine. I was playing with Marilyn McMillan (Ralph Hewitt substituted in the second game) and Wilf Stender. Both our second and third games were decided on an extra end tie breaker and we finished with 23 points – only one point behind Dianne’s team.
The full result is on the results page and there are pictures on the photos page.
Have a great week on the greens
Bill Arthur