Junior Magic

Post date: Mar 25, 2018 9:12:35 PM

Spectators at Stamford were treated to some excellent displays of bowling last Sunday when some of the region’s top under 18 players descended on Stamford’s prestigious arena. The annual competition sponsored by D & M Sport of Spalding attracted players from Hertfordshire, Derbyshire and Norfolk as well as Lincolnshire and the surrounding counties.

The youngsters, divided into two sections, and played against each other in their groups for the right to compete against the best in the other group in two semifinals to see who would play off in the grand finale at the end of the day.

The first section saw players from Melton Mowbray pitted against those from Huntingdon, Spalding and Stamford and it quickly became apparent that the future of the game was assured as some spectacular bowling was on display. Youngest competitor was 9-year-old, Owen Aspinall, from the home club who had a close encounter against Maxwell Magee from Melton Mowbray with Aspinall edging home by a single shot. There was fierce competition in his group from Sam Ormiston and Samuel Brugnoli, both from Huntingdon, who won three of their games but narrowly lost one each. Aspinall on the other hand comfortably won his remaining three games to top his group. It then took a count back to determine whether it would be Ormiston or Brugnoli who would join him in the semi-finals. In the event both competitors had a shots difference of 19 shots and it was Brugnoli who went through by virtue of having scored more overall shots.

The second section was equally fiercely contested between the competitors which included last year’s runner up, Paul Warrington, from Melton Mowbray. With several games being tied and favourites losing an odd unexpected game there were no less than five youngsters having won two of their first three games but Warrington had won two and drawn one to look favourite to go through with one game remaining. However, it was not to be as he lost by a couple of shots to Max MacKinnon from the Riverain (Hitchin) club who did go through as he was one of only two players who won three of their four games. The other player to go through was Katherine Bowman from Leicester who had a storming last game against the fancied Nicole Mosely from Lynn Sport in Norfolk.

The semi-finals were again excellent games with some fine skill on display but in both cases one party got into an early lead with their opponents fighting back towards the end, albeit a little too late. Max MacKinnon took account of local hopeful, Owen Aspinall’s hopes by 9 shots to 3 and Sam Brugnoli bettered Katherine Bowman, winning 7 – 5.