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.