Foster brothers win pairs title

Matthew and Dylan Foster have won the Poverty Bay-East Coast Centre indoor bowls open pairs title.

They beat Rachael Rickard and Royden Owen 13-2 in the final.

After three ends of nine, the game was close . . . the Foster brothers led 3-2.

But the game changed dramatically when Rickard played on to her only bowl near the scoring zone on End 4, taking her lone bowl away from the head and leaving Matthew Foster drawing in the scoring zone with his last bowl for six shots, and basically the game.

From then on, the Fosters scored two points on End 5 and one point on each of ends 6 and 7 to take the score to 13-2, when the players shook hands.

The Foster brothers — members of the New Zealand open fours champions — didn’t have it all their own way, though. They’d had to play a deciding end against Warren Gibb and Lois Lamont.

In the deciding end, Gibb had played a great bowl to push the jack back to the end of the mat. The positioning looked unbeatable — until Matthew Foster played a brilliant last bowl to take Gibb’s shot bowl off the mat to gain shot and win the game.

Kayla Trowell and Zarneo Baker, representing Lytton High School, won gold in the North Island secondary school pairs at Mt Maunganui last weekend.

They beat Matthew Spargo and Jasper Lucas, from Tauranga Boys’ College, in the final.

Dylan Foster and Sean Haskins, representing Gisborne Boys’ High School, won bronze medals in the same event.

Trowell also made the last eight in the singles event the day before, with Adam Rickard (Lytton High School) and Dylan Foster reaching the last 16 of the singles.