Gallery | Mooroopna breaks through with thrilling two-shot win, Golf hangs on against Park

The round 13 encounter at Mooroopna Bowls Club went down to the wire as the two lowly-ranked outfits battled it out under blue skies.

Mooroopna skip Josh Grieves and his rink, who had struggled all day against Daniel Nichols’ rink (30-9), defied the odds in the last end which delivered the club its maiden win of the summer.

Weekend pennant co-ordinator and skip Darren Kelly said the entire club was ecstatic to finally break through for a victory.

“It came down to the last end of the day, we were one shot up overall with one end to play and the boys that were getting belted (Grieve’s rink) all day held on to get us the win,” Kelly said.

“They went from being zero to hero and the feeling after the game was just pure excitement.

“Getting a win is just great reward for effort, especially for our younger bowlers, because we had been improving with every single game.

“The whole club was there supporting us, it was great to bring so much joy to the club.”

Along with Grieves’ rink and its final end heroics, Mooroopna had one clear standout all day.

Bruce Anselmi led his rink to a dominant and decisive 32-12 triumph over East’s Jack Spencer.

Kelly said the work done by Anselmi’s rink helped provide confidence for the entire playing group.

“Those guys in rink one were incredible, they just kept picking up numbers and covering Josh’s rink who was going down,” he said.

“Having Bruce and those boys playing so well it gave the rest of us a great boost, the way they went about it was the platform for us getting the win in the end.”

Although the win keeps Mooroopna locked to last spot on the ladder, nine points behind East Shepparton, Kelly said there was belief the club could avoid relegation.

“This result just gives us great belief that we can do it, we probably didn’t bowl our absolute best, but we got the win which shows how far we’ve come,” he said.

“Now we’ve got Stanhope next week, which will be hard away from home, but we go over there confident knowing we have what it takes to win.

“Our season is still alive and we are pumped that we are able to keep fighting for our spot in division one next week.”

Meanwhile, Shepparton Golf survived a major scare on the road against arch-rival Shepparton Park.

Golf had maintained a comfortable lead for the entire contest, leading by more than 30 shots at one stage, however, the host fought back to push the contest to the final end.

Park’s Josh Warren skipped his rink to an eventual 34-13 win, as the contingent helped pull the score back in favour of the home side.

Golf held a slim one-shot lead at the final end, but a gutsy effort from Brett Foley’s rink had the ladder leader walk away with a tense 16-99 to 2-92 triumph.

“We got ourselves out to a good lead, but we dropped off towards the end of the match and just crawled over the line in the end,” Foley said.

“We’re lucky to come away with the win.”

Lastly, Kyabram and Tallygaroopna continued on their winning ways.

The Bombers flew past Tatura-Hill Top with a gritty 16-104 to 2-89 win which keeps them tied to second spot and one point ahead of Tallygaroopna.

Peter Le Sueur led by example for the Bulldogs and skipped his rink to a classy 27-23 win over Glenn Fields.

Tallygaroopna was too strong for Stanhope and raced away to a 16-101 to 2-73 victory at its adopted home at Kialla Park.