Stuart Greenhalgh's Mid Cheshire bowling news round-up

IN the Mid Cheshire Crown Green Bowling League, first versus second is always a match to look forward to.

Wharton Cons, sitting in second spot, hosted the league leaders Castle Sports A.

And it proved not to be a great night for Castle, who only had two winners in a 201-163 defeat.

This was Castle’s third loss of the season and the gap at the top of the table fell to only 10 points.

Third place Frodsham Red Lion made the trip to Castle Sports B, who had a great night with seven winners in a 198-145 victory.

Fourth place Crewe Post Office hosted Comberbach A and certainly improved their chances of catching Frodsham with a 210-133 win.

Crewe PO have closed the gap on Frodsham to 46 points, with Frodsham set to make the trip up to Crewe on September 6.

I mentioned last week that Tom Vickers won two local Merits in the space of three days.

Sadly, still no match scores are available from the Norley Merit.

The Mid Cheshire Merit, though, we do now know the results: Quarter-finals: Tom Vickers 21-14 Gerald Merry, Ryan Sandham 21-20 Glynn Cookson, Conall Redmond 21-10 Rob Pace, Nick Walker 21-9 James Gurney.

Semi-finals: Tom Vickers 21-10 Ryan Sandham, Nick Walker 21-10 Conall Redmond.

Final: Tom Vickers 21-10 Nick Walker.

In the Mid Cheshire Ladies League, Red Lion continued their dominance of the first division, with another maximum score at home to Davenham.

Castle look like they will take second spot with a 100-point lead over Barnton in third.

Things are much more exciting in Division Two, with Barnton B in first and Rudheath SSC only 10 points behind in second.

Bostock third, Moulton fourth, and fifth-placed Norley B are separated by three points.

Any one of these five teams could still win the league if the results go their way.

After an awful week for organiser David O’Brien trying to replace late drop-outs, a full complement of 64 bowlers arrived at Castle Sports for the George Astbury Trophy.

After a great day’s bowling on what looked like a green at its best the two semi-finalists took to the green.

Dan Petcher, in a close game against Mid Cheshire bowler, Danny Nixon, just took the match 21-19 to make his way into the final.

In the bottom half of the draw, Matty Worden took on Lee Johnstone and again we had a close game with Worden just winning 21-18.

The final was incredibly close with both bowlers playing well and nipping in front of each other again and again.

The very last end saw Petcher leading 20-19 and he set the mark.

With Petcher having already bowled his bowls and lying one down, it was up to Worden who bowled a great second bowl under pressure to get the two he needed to win the competition.

The final of the Wharton Cons Open took place on Sunday, with 16 qualifiers in action all hoping to take the prize of £700.

Jason Cornes, Mark Ball, Josh Towey and Steve Morrey were the last four Mid-Cheshire bowlers still in the competition.

In the first round, Steve Morrey was the only casualty from Mid Cheshire, losing to Shropshire’s Martin Lloyd 21-19.

Callum Wraight, one of crown green’s big names, also lost in his first game to Leighton Roberts 21-17.

Mid-Cheshire lost two more in the quarter-finals, with Jason Cornes losing 14-21 to Josh Cotton, and Ball losing 21-15 to Leighton Roberts.

In the other two games Andy Riley beat Ben Stapleton 21-15, and Josh Towey beat Lloyd 21-16.

The semi-finals were surprisingly quick with Roberts defeating Cotton to single figures.

In the other semi-final Towey also won his game against Riley to single figures.

And in the final, Roberts took off from where he left off in the semi-final, overpowering his opponent and winning the first prize of £700.

Towey took £400, just falling at the last but bowling well all night.