Kahutia Bowling Club’s Karen Pinn narrowly missed out on making the semifinals of the national super singles tournament for players with up to eight years of bowls experience.
In a field of 24, she finished ninth.
After a stellar summer on the greens, fourth-year bowler Pinn received an invitation to the inaugural tourney from short-form bowls organiser Fletch Christian.
Pinn represented the Kahutia club and the Gisborne-East Coast centre as the competition drama played out on the Naenae Bowling Club greens in Wellington.
She was one of 24 bowlers who came from clubs stretching between the Far North and Southland.
Pinn had won the centre open singles and been a member of several tournament-winning teams in the season just ended.
She was named the most improved junior women’s player and the centre women’s player of the year.
Pinn was not the only player with strong Gisborne connections.
Shaun Goldsbury, son of Gisborne-East Coast centre president Steve and his wife Kay, represented the Takapuna Bowling Club and the North Harbour centre.
He has two years of bowls experience and finished fifth. In post-section play, he won four games and five sets.
Games comprised two sets, each of six ends. Players could nominate one end a set as their power play. Otherwise it would automatically apply on the sixth end. If opponents won a set each, they would play a tie-break end.
In section play, Pinn won three games and five sets, enough for her to qualify for the top 12 in 11th place.
She and her friend Suzie Dodson, of the Stoke Bowling Club in Nelson, were the only women to qualify for the top section.
Dodson, a player with four years of bowls experience, won four games and six sets to qualify in seventh place.
In post-section play, Pinn won three games and five sets.
In her game against Adam Blucher, a Te Atatu Peninsula club player with six years of bowls experience, Pinn won the first set 12-1, but lost the second set and the tie-break.
If she had taken the second set and the win, it would have been enough for her to qualify for the semifinals.
As it was, she had to settle for ninth place in the top 12. Dodson, with one victory and two sets won in post-section play, finished 12th.
Michael Staite, of the Ngongotaha club in the Bay of Plenty, beat Rodney Downes, of the Papanui club in Canterbury, in the tournament final.
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