Triple Treat

by admin on April 4, 2017

After an arduous day on the greens, Jessie Cottell, Zac Adams and Nick Cahill lifted the Junior State Champs triples prize. (Pictured left:  BQ board director Geoff Osborne with 2017 Junior State Champs Triples gold medallists Zac Adams, Nick Cahill and Jessie Cottell.)

It was a long day of roll ups for this year’s winners of the Junior State U18’s Open Triples title played on Wednesday April 5 (Day 4 of the six-day Championships).

Jessie Cottell, Zac Adams and skip Nick Cahill played from 8am till 4pm, carving their way through an opposition of 15 other hopeful teams at Pelican Waters Bowls Club, and time seemed to fly as teams were knocked out one after another.

The final game came down to skip Cahill and Co. against Julia Allen-Best, Sean Gillis and skip Brittanny Wiley.
Cahill’s team who took an early lead, opening the game up 5 – 0 in the first three ends, putting their opposition on the back foot.

Skip Wiley and her team was not going to let them off lightly and racked up seven shots over the next three ends and scored a multiple of four on the eighth end.

Cahill, Cottell and Adams responded strongly, going four shots up in the ninth to regain the lead.

With the teams level at 10-10 on the tenth end, teamwork and well-placed shots from all three players on skip Cahill’s team enabled them to surge forward and open up a margin of ten shots, 20-10 by end 16.

By end 17 as the rain started to come down, it was all but over, Wiley’s team able to pick up only three shots to reduce the margin to 20-13, and confirming the sweeping domination of Cottell and Cahill in this Juniors Series (third title together), with the assistance of Adams (second title with Cottell and Cahill). 

Despite it being a tough final Jessie Cottell said the team had felt confident throughout and put it down to having a great chemistry between the three of them.

“We performed awesomely today and I think it’s because we gel so well,” Cottell said.

“I play with Zac and Nick in the fours as well, so we get each other and know each other really well and that’s why we play so well together.”

After a long day of bowls skip Nick Cahill said it was great to come away with the Triples title.
He said the turning point of the game had been going four up in the ninth end.

“It was the biggest turning point for us as we were down 6-8 and then we got the four shots to put us in front,” Cahill said.

“We then just kept getting a couple up on them until the end which was good.”

Semi-finals:

The semi-finals looked as if the two games were going to be back and forth matches with all four teams fighting tooth and nail to secure themselves a place in the final, but in an unexpected turn of events, both games turned out to be one-sided.

After taking off to a strong start skip Brittany Wiley’s team consisting of Julia Allen-Best and Sean Gillis were able to outplay the trio of Isabelle Lawson, Shane Rideout and skip Bradley Flegler to take the game with a big 18-5 win.

In a similar turn of events Jessie Cottell, Zac Adams and Nick Cahill (s), jumped into a big lead early and it looked as if it would be an easy win over skip Rebecca Rixon, Shervawn Wilson and Nathan Earle but they weren’t ready to let the game go easily.

Skip Rixon and her team started to creep back up on Cahill and close the gap, but strong 25 Km/hr winds added extra pressure in already tense finals with the teams having to adjust their bowls accordingly to counteract the gusts pushing bowls off course intermittently.

Cottell made some great plays and helped push her team to once again widen the gap with the help of Adams and Cahill, from end 6 the trio were able to extend their lead, even more, bringing the game to 20-11 in their favour to take them into the final.

The boys U18s and U15s singles competition will start tomorrow (April 6), 9am at Caloundra Bowls Club and the girls U18s and U15s singles will kick off at the same time at Pelican Waters Bowls Club.

To see the full results and draw from today’s competition visit the Bowls Queensland results page available here.

(All the competition draws and results are also available on the same page.)