White Rock reach national semi-finals

The Hastings-based outfit won its quarter-final at Victoria Park, Royal Leamington Spa, on Saturday afternoon before narrowly losing Sunday morning’s semi-final.

White Rock edged out Southampton Sports Centre BC 3-2 in a dramatic quarter-final. White Rock won the singles and two-woods, but lost the fours and pairs so the result hinged on the outcome of the triples.

A tense contest went all the way to the final wood. After Trevor Roberts had pushed the jack out, the opposing skip was unable to get within two yards of it to draw shot and White Rock were through.

Their hopes of going all the way were ended, however, by a 3-2 loss against eventual champions Gosforth BC (Northumberland) in the semi-finals.

Nick Wingfield was beaten 18-12 in the two-wood match, but Colin Nutton won 21-11 in the singles, and White Rock also won the pairs thanks to a narrow 17-15 victory for Keith Cheetham and Shaun Godfrey over a combination which had won the family pairs two years in a row.

White Rock were four shots up with two ends to go in the triples, but Glen Newton, Stuart Jellis and Roberts went down 14-16. Chris Surman, Andy Collier, Tony Clarkson and Kenny Bolton lost 20-23 in the fours having done well to claw back quite a large deficit to take the match to the last end.

Having only been playing for a year, Collier came in to the side as a reserve and performed very well.

It was the first time White Rock had reached the national finals in the Top Club event.

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