DESPITE the inclement weather over the weekend, five of the scheduled six Wiltshire women’s national championship finals were completed at Avon.

However, the pairs final will have to be re-arranged until possibly after the nationals at Leamington owing to fixture congestion.

The five finals that did take place at Avon saw five different clubs – Royal Wootton Bassett, Box, Spencer Melksham, Highworth and Supermarine – all lift a trophy, with several surprises on the way as well.

Box fielded representatives in four finals, but were only successful in one, but they still have an interest in one as the pairs was postponed.

Sue Cooke was the lone Box winner in the two-wood singles final, coming from 5-1 down at five ends, 8-4 down at 10 and 11-8 adrift at 16 to edge past Amesbury’s Janice Bull (Amesbury) to win 14-12.

However, in the triples, the Box trio of Debbie Shadwell, Cooke and Alex Jacobs never recovered from a poor start that saw them trail the Spencer Melksham trio of Jenny Couch, Marilyn Jay and skip Delia Godwin 11-1 after six ends.

Godwin’s trio extended the advantage to 15-6 after 13 ends before Box rallied to cut the final deficit to 18-13 at the allotted 18 ends.

And in the fours, Box trailed Supermarine 11-5 after 12 ends but fought back to go 15-13 up at 19 ends, only to concede a two and a five on the last two ends to lose to Supermarine 20-15.

Royal Wootton Bassett’s Lucy Smith, appearing in her first main ladies singles final, put up a brave performance to lead Highworth’s Linda Young 7-2 after five ends and 12-8 after 10.

She dropped two counts of three on the next two ends to trail for the first time 14-12 after 12 ends, and never fully recovered to finally lose 21-17.

However, Smith, 23, bounced back from this loss at the expense of her 21-year-old sister Katy in the U25 singles final.

Lucy extended her remarkable record to six consecutive victories in the junior singles as she won a one-sided final 21-6.

  • THE month-long national championships and competitions commence at Victoria Park, Royal Leamington Spa this Saturday.

They kick-off with the women’s and men’s top inter-county championship semi-finals and final in the Johns Trophy and Middleton Cup.

Wiltshire Ladies have named an unchanged team for their Johns Trophy semi against Yorkshire from that which earned a 115-108 victory over Devon in the quarter-finals three weeks ago.

  • WILTSHIRE ladies rounded-off a highly successful South West Counties League campaign with victory.

They won their opening four games against Cornwall (120-117), Somerset (119-92), Worcestershire (123-121) and Herefordshire (123-101) before losing to arch rivals Devon 112-104.

They bounced back to thrash Dorset 128-85 last week to collect 20 of the 22 points on offer.

This secured at least second spot in the table, but a few of the counties still have matches to complete and will not play them until after the national championships end at Leamington.

  • HUSBAND and wife partnership of Neil and Kathryn Yeoman just missed out on a place representing Wiltshire in the last 16 of the mixed pairs competition at Leamington.

The couple, who play for Broughton Gifford and Box respectively, lost 18-16 in the Dorset and Wilts final earlier this week.

But Chippenham Town’s Irene Button is through to the last 16 in the O 55s ladies singles at Leamington after a 21-9 victory over Sandra Bartlett (Winsley).

Box duo Sue Cooke and Alex Jacobs are through to the senior O55s pairs last 32 at Leamington after beating a Chippenham Town duo led by Viv Baskerville comfortably 28-15.

Cooke and Jacobs, who were runners-up at Leamington last season in the ladies national pairs, have qualified for that event again this season.