DESPITE fielding a strong team that included nine players with international experience, West Lothian failed to stay the course over 21 ends and lost by a single shot to Aberdeen in the B Section of the Indoor Bowls Premier League.
Aberdeen, enjoying home advantage, trailed over the first two seven-end phases 28-23 and 29-25, but responded with a match-transforming 26-16 effort on the third phase and a 7-0 clean sweep across the carpet on the four final ends to win 74-73.
"It's a long way to travel to lose by a single shot especially as we almost led the home team from start to finish," summed up a spokesman for West Lothian.
The damage was done across three rinks with Thomas Mann, Graeme Archer and Mark Allison the losing skips leaving Neil Speirs the only victor for the visitors.
Speirs made a flying start to open up an inspirational 12-0 lead after seven ends against Roy Henry and he went on to skip Bryan Cooper, Raymond Logan and Ricky Forrest to a 24-13 victory, but it was spoiled by the heavy loss of 4 and 3 over his last two ends.
Mann had a leaner time over his first six ends to trail Mike Stephen, 6-3 but he did recover to skip James Greenock, David Wilson and Calum Logan into an 18-11 lead after 18 having included a run of 5, 1 and 2.
However, a dramatic turn of events saw Mann and Co suffer a costly 20-18 defeat having been outgunned 4, 2, 1, 1, 1 on the run in.
Archer trailed G Forbes 7-3 after five ends but produced a decent run of 2, 1, 1, 2 to skip Cameron Greer, Des Hagart and George Sneddon into a 9-7 lead, however, they then collapsed to 18-9 down with the loss of 1, 1, 5, 4.
A double at the next and a late run of 1, 2, 3 came too late to avoid a 20-17 defeat in a game that only completed 19 ends.
Allison had Davy Brown, James Speirs and Stuart Johnston well in touch at 14-15 after 17 ends but crashed 21-14 to Kevin Pirie.
The full article contains 385 words and appears in Edinburgh Evening News newspaper.
