Bowls: Ballantine's blast puts Mid back on track

Published on Thursday 1 October 2009 10:00

MIDLOTHIAN bounced back from an opening home defeat at the hands of great rivals East Lothian by scoring a 16-shot away victory (67-51) over Portobello in the East B section of the Scottish indoor bowls Seniors League Cup.

The visitors posted wins on three of their rinks – skipped by Bill Ballantine, Alex Cox, and Frank Gray – whilst Ronnie Douglas made a winning impression for Portobello.

"It's good to get our section campaign onto a winning note and to do that on an away carpet builds confidence for the tough task that lies ahead as East Lothian will take all the catching," said Midlothian's Gray.

Midlothian's chief eye-catcher was Ballantine, who carded shots at 12 of the 17 ends as he skipped G Thomson, C Cairns and former cap Billy Higgins to a 22-6 win over Bob Cranston, John McLeod, John Fraser and Alex Walker.

Ballantine's 16-shot win was the result that tipped the match scales as Ronnie Douglas had put Porty in the picture by skipping Andy Irvine, Jim Laing and George Gray to a 22-15 success over Alex Grant, Hugh Christie, Tom Anderson and Willie Dunn.

East Lothian are the favourites to finish top of the East B section and supporting evidence was provided in the shape of a commanding 69-45 home win over Balbardie and already the "Garden County" team are sitting top of the table.

Their four-point haul from two games puts them one ahead of West Lothian, who stepped up from their opening peel with Balbardie by producing a convincing 70-54 win over Bainfield at the Inveralmond stadium.

Meanwhile, an extra place at the table of the World Indoor Singles at Potters Leisure Resort in January has become available to the Scottish qualifiers and that means an extra bite of the cherry for Willie Wood MBE and Andrew Caldwell. Both lost out in the recent section finals and the clash between the respective East Lothian and Portobello stars takes place at Falkirk this Sunday at 11.30am.