Champions Crowned at Berkeley

The Pacific Inter-Mountain Division (PIMD) bowling season reached a spectacular conclusion on November 22, 2025, as the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club hosted the annual Champion of Champions Tournament. Under beautiful skies, the event brought together the division’s elite—competitors who had already proven themselves by winning their respective club singles tournaments. A total of twelve club champions from across the Bay Area, including representatives from Santa Cruz, Oakland, San Jose, San Francisco, Rossmoor, Santa Clara, and Palo Alto, gathered on the Berkeley greens for this prestigious season finale.

The women’s competition proved to be a nail-biter, featuring a relentless round-robin format that came down to the wire. The field was incredibly evenly matched, ending with a three-way tie at the top of the leaderboard: Rachel Marcuson (Santa Cruz), Reggie Banares (San Jose), and local favorite Janie Hillyer (Berkeley) all finished with impressive 4-1 records. The title was ultimately decided by “plus points,” with Rachel Marcuson edging out Janie Hillyer by a slim margin of just two points (+27 to +25) to secure the overall victory. Congratulations to Rachel Marcuson for emerging as the 2025 Women’s Champion of Champions.

On the men’s side, the field was split into two flights, with stellar performances leading to a clash of undefeated bowlers. Ian Cameron (San Jose) and Daniel Gorelick (Berkeley) dominated their respective groups, both posting perfect 3-0 records to advance to the final. In the championship game, Berkeley’s own Daniel Gorelick defeated Ian Cameron to claim the title, keeping the Men’s trophy at home. Congratulations to Daniel on his victory, and to all the competitors for a wonderful end to the season. (Action photos provided courtesy of Dave Seivert) .

As the 2025 lawn bowling tournament season wraps up, it was time for the annual BLBC Novice Tournament. This year, the field was small but packed with talent. We had Mike O’Leary and Ben Corson, who took first and second in the PIMD Novice Tournament just a week ago in San Francisco. Joining them was Mark Baker, who also did well in the PIMD Tournament, and Stephanie Upp, a less frequent bowler with a natural athletic flair.

It was a lovely fall day for bowling, with perfect temperatures and no wind under a sunny sky. The hospitality committee put together a delicious spread, and the tournament drew an appreciative group of spectators and markers. The tournament followed a round-robin format with three rounds of games. Winners were determined by the first to reach 15 points. After two rounds, Mike was leading with a 2–0 record, Ben and Mark were each 1–1, and Stephanie was 0–2. This set the stage for an exciting finish. Mike would win outright with a third victory, while Ben and Mark were in striking distance if that didn’t happen.

Ben played Stephanie in the final game and won, bringing his record to 2–1. In the next rink, Mark faced off against Mike in a closely watched game. This one was intensely played, with Mark establishing an early lead and maintaining a small margin as the game went on. The heads were impressively tight, with both bowlers well dialed in. As Mark approached the required 15 points, Mike had some really nice bowls that came within an inch of claiming the head. But, in a stroke of misfortune they bounced the wrong way, and the game went to Mark.

At the end of the day, Mark, Mike, and Ben each ended up with a 2–1 record. The winner was then determined by differential points. Mark had the highest differential total, making him the 2025 BLBC Novice Champion.

Well done to all the bowlers for putting on such an entertaining display. Kudos as well to the Greenskeepers, Cindy Moss as Tournament Director, and the Hospitality Committee.

Once again new players from around the Bay Area have gathered for the annual PIMD novice tournament and once again the BLBC had a fine showing. This year the tournament attracted 16 novice players, all of whom had been in the game for two years or less.

There was a preliminary round with each novice playing three games at the San Francisco Lawn Bowling Club. From this four players emerged with a perfect 3–0 record to continue on as the final four – Renne Xie, Ben Corson, Mike O’Leary, and Mark Hanusin. The champion was determined as these folks battled it out in a round robin format.

Tournament Director Bud Birkenseer (a hero to us all) reported on the final four playoff: “The weather was lovely at Golden Gate Park today, and Lawn Bowling had some excellent bowling today. One of the matches went 23 ends before one of the bowlers reached the needed 18 points for a win. Mike O’Leary snuck by Ben Corson with a last end 3-Pointer: You can see Mike’s three bowls in the image below (they still are friends…I think.)”

The final four Novices did themselves proud and the BLBC can take great pride as well in Mike’s win, Ben’s very close second place, and Mark’s third. Well done.

Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club had strong representation at the US Nationals held Oct 19-25th at the beautiful Laguna Beach Lawn Bowling Club (LBLBC).  LBLBC has two zippy greens overlooking the Pacific Ocean.  Between the crashing waves, seagull calls and the daily Pelican flyovers, there was always something to watch in addition to great lawn bowling.  For example, on one notable occasion, a proud seagull snatched a cookie and proceeded to strut around the center of the green, stopping all play.  The venue never disappointed.

The LBLBC crew did an amazing job hosting, including feeding the players, officials and many volunteers several times each day.  Twice in the evenings, live music accompanied appetizers and/or dinner.  Event sponsors provided even more food and drinks.  This was not an event where one lacked for anything. 

For the Bowls USA, the country is represented by 7 divisions.  Berkeley LBC is in the Pacific Intermountain Division (PIMD).  Because of the large number of lawn bowlers in the Southwest Division,  they have 2 teams in each category, which they have named “Stars” and “Stripes”.  Thus, at the US Nationals, there are 8 groups of 6 players comprised of men’s singles, men’s pairs, women’s singles and women’s pairs.  BLBC had an impressive showing at the event with 5/6 PIMD players being members of the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club. 

After 3.5 days of spirited play, teams from the Southwest Division swept all of the events, save the women’s pairs, which was won by the South Central team in an epic playoff. PIMD did quite well across the board  Crushing most of their opponents with 5/7 wins was the women’s pairs team of Rose Selby and Annie Brillhart.   Overall, they came in 3rd and can boast as the only PIMD team to beat a SW team. We are also quite proud of Rob Hoey who also came in 3rd in the men’s singles with 4/7 wins.  Several of his battles were fierce and continued well after the 20th end.  Janine Maddock, who was a novice when she won the playdowns, had a strong showing in the women’s singles, winning 3/7 games.  Her battles were also long with the 19:21 loss to Anne Nunes (Stripes) going on for 23 ends.  Finally, after several back and forth games that could have gone either way, Daniel Gorelick and Calvin Darling won 2/7 of their games.

Overall, BLBC can be proud of these fine players. Videos of several of the games can be viewed at:

https://www.youtube.com/@SouthwestLawnBowls

At the 2025 PIMD Singles Championships held at the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club in early October, bowlers from across the Pacific Inter-Mountain Division competed under excellent green conditions freshly rolled with the club’s new roller.

On the women’s side, Rose Selby from the Palo Alto Lawn Bowling Club emerged as the overall champion, completing an impressive undefeated run—winning all six games over the two days. In the final, she overcame a strong challenge from Berkeley’s Janie Hillyer, who took second place after carrying an early lead. Joanne Ribeiro of Rossmoor finished third, and Angie Peet from San Francisco placed fourth.

The men’s field was split into two groups for Sunday’s play. Berkeley’s Daniel Gorelick and Rossmoor’s Frankie Napoli both went undefeated in group play, advancing to face each other in the title match. Napoli proved dominant in the final, claiming victory in decisive fashion to complete his own unbeaten weekend performance. Gorelick took the runner-up position, with Kevin Reynolds (San Francisco) finishing third and Jim Corr (Berkeley) fourth.

Berkeley’s greens and organization received praise for providing ideal tournament conditions.

The BLBC is very proud to be sending five of our members representing the PIMD to the Bowls USA National Championship, which will be played at the Laguna Beach Lawn Bowling Club from October 19 – 25.  Seven regional divisions from across the US will be represented by their players each of whom has won their respective playdown tournaments for Singles or Pairs formats.

Our Women’s Singles Champion is BLBC member, Janine Maddock, the Women’s Pairs champions are Palo Alto’s Rose Shelby and BLBC’S Annie Brillhart, the Men’s Singles champion is BLBC’S Rob Hoey, and the Men’s Pairs Champion are BLBC dual member Calvin Darling and BLBC’S Daniel Gorelick.

We are wishing all our champions the best of luck and happy bowling!

If you are interested in following the tournament, look for your email from Bowls USA and follow the prompts for links to the tournament.  

Berkeley Prevails at First PIMD “Battle of the Rinks”

Rinks play or Fours is not a very popular form of the game of bowls in the USA, especially at the club level. Most players prefer the opportunity to use three bowls in Triples or four bowls in Pairs and Singles. But Rinks is widely played overseas and is commonly, these days, the third format in the “big” Open tournaments in the USA—the South Central, Southwest, and US Opens. 

Partly with the aim of raising the visibility of the Rinks format—and partly just for fun (that’s what we’re here for, right?)—PIMD decided this year to institute a new tournament: rinks format with the quartets each representing their home club. No dual member ringers allowed. This is the first time, at the PIMD level, that clubs rather than individual bowlers have faced off.

With Santa Cruz LBC agreeing to host the inaugural event, held on Saturday August 9, we were guaranteed a fast and relatively true green—not to say there weren’t tricky patches occasionally. In addition to the BLBC foursome—Rob Hoey (skip), Jim Corr (Vice) Russ Leonard (Second), and Janice Bell (Lead)—there were entrants from San Jose, Palo Alto, and San Francisco, which fielded two teams. Attempts to put together a second BLBC team proved unsuccessful for a variety of reasons—bowlers out of town, bowlers with other commitments that day, bowlers not keen on the travel to the outer reaches of the PIMD universe, etc etc.

Berkeley did well in their first two games in the morning, defeating the home team by 5 points over the 12 ends played and Palo Alto by the maximum plus points of 7, each player contributing to the overall team performance. In the afternoon, a bit of the after-lunch blahs set in and BLBC struggled in the early stages against the San Francisco “A” team but managed a comeback to pull off a 2-point win in the third game. At that juncture both San Jose and Berkeley were the only two teams with three wins, and the luck of the draw had them face each other in what was, in effect, a Final, winner-takes-all.

Berkeley had three points on the board after the first two ends, but San Jose (Jon and Tom Burnoski, John Johnson and Reggie Banares) responded with a run of winning ends, including four on the fourth, to establish a powerful 9-2 lead at the halfway stage. At this point, Rob, who had been playing some fine “skip shots” throughout the day to save many an end for BLBC, called a quick team conference. His pep talk (who remembers the actual words?) was Churchillian in its effect as Berkeley went on to storm the remaining 6 ends and pull off victory by 13-9. 

And so BLBC has the honor of winning the first PIMD “Battle of the Rinks.” 

On Saturday, June 14, 36 teams from clubs around the Bay Area gathered at San Francisco Lawn Bowling Club to compete in the Mixed 5’s Tournament. The teams had to consist of three women and two men or three men and two women in order to make the required team mix. Singles and Fours games were played in the morning and Pairs and Triples in the afternoon. Jim Corr and Annie Brillhart from Berkeley along with Rose Selby and Tom Burnoski won their Fours game. Meanwhile, Jonathan Burnoski won his Singles game. In the afternoon, Jim and Tom won their Pairs game and Jonathan, Rose and Annie won their Triples game. Not only were Jim, Tom, Jonathan, Rose and Annie the only team to win all four games, they also won all four games with the maximum ten + points!

Berkeley sweeps again!

The playdowns are qualifying tournaments to select one men’s team and one women’s team to represent PIMD at the national championships to be held this year in October at the Laguna Beach Lawn Bowling Club.  The playdowns are a rigorous test of skill amongst most talented and most ambitious bowlers in our division.   The playdowns are set up in a full round robin format where each team plays every other team in the competition and the team with the best record goes to the nationals.  This process can take time, but is the fairest and most complete method to select our teams.

Five women’s teams participated and played over the weekend of June 21-22 at the Rossmoor Lawn Bowling Club.  In a highly competitive and closely matched event, the standings shifted frequently and dramatically over the course of the games.   At the end of the two days of bowling the team of Rose Selby from the Palo Alto LBC and Ann Brillhart from the Berkeley LBC emerged as the winners having won 3 of their 4 games with 14 plus points.  Congrats to Rose and Ann who are on their way to Laguna Beach.  They just edged out Ginger Harris (Palo Alto LBC and Janice Bell (Berkeley LBC) by just one plus point.  Ginger and Janice will be the alternates.

Twelve men’s teams played 11 games against the other teams over the weekend of June 21-22 in Rossmoor and June 28-29 in Berkeley.  These full days of competitive bowls lasted into the early evening on the first three days, represented a test of skill and endurance.  At the end of the 4 days, consistency was rewarded as the team comprised of two lead / singles specialists Daniel Gorelick from Berkeley LBC and Calvin Darling from San Francisco LBC emerged as the winners.  They won 10 of 11 games with  117 plus points.  Congrats!  It did come down to the last game as the team of Jesse May (Santa Cruz LBC) and Luis Zapata (San Francisco LBC) won all three of their games against tough competition on the final Sunday, to keep the pressure of Daniel and Calvin.  Jesse and Luis finished just one game behind at 9-2 and will be our alternates.  

Berkeley sweeps the Singles Playdowns!

Good news this week from the PIMD playdowns. Our Janine Andrews dominated the field in a round robin competition to select PIMD’s participant in the national women’s championship. Well done! In the men’s competition Berkeley’s Rob Hoey and Daniel Gorelick rose to the top of a fiercely competitive field. Here is the account taken from the PIMD Newsletter:

On May 17-18, seven ambitious women took part in PIMD’s playdowns at the Berkeley Lawn Bowling Club, competing for the right to represent PIMD in the National Singles Championships to be held In Laguna Beach, California in October. Participants were Mei Chan (San Francisco), Reggie Banares (San Jose), Joellyn Raderstorf (San Francisco), Rose Selby (Palo Alto), Janine Andrews (Berkeley), and two teen-age bowlers, Adilyn Zeino (San Francisco) and CeCe LeMessurier (San Jose). Over the course of the weekend, the ladies played a complete round robin style tournament, playing each of the other competitors one time. CeCe is a regular bowler at the San Jose lawn bowling club, which has artificial turf. Believe it or not, this was CeCe’s first time playing on natural grass. At the end of the day on Sunday, the two younger participants had very good showings, each winning three of their six games. Janine Andrews (Berkeley) won her first 5 games and had the event won prior to the start of her last game. She will represent PIMD at nationals. Rose Selby was runner up and will be the alternate.

Over that same weekend, plus Monday, sixteen men competed in the men’s singles playdowns. Saturday and Sunday were dedicated to group play with each player competing one day in San Jose and one day in Santa Cruz. After the weekend, the field of 16 was reduced to a final bracket of 8 to be played off on Monday in San Jose. The final eight consisted of DanielGorelick (Berkeley), Calvin Darling (San Francisco), Chris Davis (Berkeley), Jim Corr(Berkeley), Scottie Marzonie (Palo Alto), Frankie Napoli (Rossmoor), Rob Hoey (Berkeley), and Jesse May (Santa Cruz). All eight of these bowlers travel regularly to bowl. All of them took part in last year’s US Open and 7 of the 8 were at last month’s Southwest Open. The competition was fierce and at the end of the day Monday Rob Hoey, emerged the victor and will represent PIMD at nationals, having run through Scottie Marzonie, Jesse May, and Daniel Gorelick in three epic matches on his way to a well earned win. Daniel Gorelick will be the alternate.