Kay Dewson and Dustyn Allen win on home green to progress to the mixed pairs state playoffs

Wee Waa Bowling Club hosted the 2022/23 season Bowls NSW state mixed pairs qualifiers across the weekend and it was a local team that emerged victorious following the final on Sunday afternoon.

Kay Dewson and her grandson Dustyn Allen were one of 11 teams in action at the event, and they qualified for the three-team finals series after topping their section on Saturday.

The Wee Waa duo won both of their games on Sunday to finish the event as undefeated winners and progress to the state finals, which will be held in July next year.

The number of teams that will play in that event had doubled from the previous season to 32.

Wee Waa was one of 22 venues that hosted a state mixed pairs qualifying event this year, which were held in every regional area of the state.

The local club was scheduled to host the matches on Saturday and Sunday, November 5 and 6, however, those were postponed due to flooding in the Narrabri Shire.

Eleven teams eventually lined up when it went ahead on the weekend, and they were all placed into three sections.

The sectional matches were played across three time slots on Saturday at 8.45am, 11.15am and 2.15pm, and the winners of each section would then progress through to Sunday’s final.

One of the three sections included two Narrabri Bowling Club teams and two Gunnedah Services and Bowling Club teams. Lorraine Scott and Kevin Baguley were one of the Narrabri duos, and Eva Sadler and Trinity Kelly were the other, and Ella Cameron and Scott Thorning were one of the Gunnedah teams and Joanne Briggs and Caleb Cameron were the other.

Baguley and Scott were beaten 24-7 by Cameron and Thorning in round one, while Sadler and Kelly downed Briggs and Cameron 24-8.

Scott and Baguley bounced back from that loss and scored a 27-12 win against Sadler and Kelly in round two, while Cameron and Thorning took down Briggs and Cameron 20-11 in the other fixture.

Those results saw Cameron and Thorning go into the final round of sectional play on top of the ladder, however, they were beaten 18-15 in round three by Sadler and Kelly, which meant that both of those teams finished on six points following two wins and a loss.

Also finishing six points were Scott and Baguley, who prevailed 32-4 in their round three game against Briggs and Cameron.

That win saw the brother and sister Narrabri duo finish at the top of the sectional ladder with a for and against difference of 26, which was just three better than Cameron and Thorning’s and 22 better than Sadler and Kelly’s.

Another section included one team from Lightning Ridge and three from the Narrabri Bowling Club. The Narrabri teams were Marie and Tony Redman, Helen Woodward and Rob Wolters, and Debbie Gleeson and Dave Dewar, and the Lightning Ridge duo was Heidi Monch and Darren Richards.

The first two games in that section were one-point thrillers, as Wolters and Woodward downed the Redmans 22-21, and Monch and Richards beat Gleeson and Dewar 22-21.

However, the round two wins were much more convincing as Monch and Richards defeated Woodward and Wolters 30-6, and Gleeson and Dewar outscored the Redmans 17-9.

Monch and Richards then made it a clean sweep of the section with a 20-13 win against the Redmans in round three to finish on top of the sectional ladder on nine points, while Gleeson and Dewar defeated Woodward and Wolters 20-10 to place second.

There were only three teams in the other section, which included Allen and Dewson and their fellow Wee Waa clubmates Melissa Allen and Paul Andreassen as well as Gunnedah Services and Bowling Club’s Patrina Marshall and Tim Thorning.

Dewson and Allen got off to a flying start in the opening round with a 16-15 win against the Gunnedah duo, and they made it two from two with a 23-17 round two win over Allen and Andreassen.

Allen and Andreassen then won the third and final match 21-15 against Marshall and Thorning.

Saturday’s results saw Narrabri’s Baguley and Scott, Wee Waa’s Allen and Dewson and Lightning Ridge’s Monch and Richards all qualify for Sunday’s final.

The format for the final was the same as the day before, with all teams playing against each other once. The winner would be the team that won both of their games or earned the best for and against difference if all three teams won a game each.

Monch and Richards started off on the front foot with a dominant 23-6 win against Baguley and Scott, and Dewson and Allen then beat Baguley and Scott 18-11.

It then came down to the third and final match when the Wee Waa duo took on the Lightning Ridge team. The winner of that match would reign supreme in the final and qualify for the state playoffs, and it was Allen and Dewson that got the job done as they edged out Monch and Richards 13-12 in a close game that came down to the final end.