Who will be our Singles Queen?
Bowls Queensland State Championships Women’s Singles, Semi finals start 8.45am, Wed May 13. Final to follow. Ester Regan V Julie Keegan. Kiani Andersen V Connie-Leigh Rixon. Pic: Ester Regan in action at State Champs 2015.
Bramble Bay’s Ester Regan will face a purple haze in tomorrow’s finals, as three Kawana Thunderbirds bear down on the State Single’s crown.
The former Mackay girl is a phenomenal warrior on a green, in Premier League, and at state level competitions, currently State Mixed Pairs titleholder with Pine Rivers Kurt Brown.
Regan will face Kawana legend Julie Keegan in the first semi.
The former netballer easily turned her talents to bowls and quickly became a world-beater, playing more than 100 tests for Australia since 2007, and picking up Asia Pacific, Commonwealth Games and World Championships medals along the way.
Keegan has previous form as a Queensland State Women’s Singles winner (2008), after bursting on to the Australian scene with an Aussie Open Women’s Singles win two years earlier (2006).
She has the biggest target on her back in tomorrow’s finals, and the heaviest heart; Keegan is the one the Kawana girls turn to for mentoring and inspiration, yet if she wins against Regan tomorrow, and goes through to the final, success would come at the expense one of the raging talents she has been proudly nurturing, Kawana’s Connie-Leigh Rixon, 18, or Kiani Andersen, 21.
The two young Thunderbirds will face off against each other in the second semi.
In a rare brother-sister double, Kiani and younger brother Joel recently won Kawana’s A Singles for Men and Women, so the young mum has form at beating the best.
Connie Leigh was an outstanding junior rep for Queensland, winning her final State Junior Pairs title in April with younger sister Rebecca, not long before her 18th birthday.
One thing is for sure, the final tomorrow will be a young gun V a seasoned campaigner.
