mmg.com.au

Mooroopna’s Stacey Collier and Willy Graus, Rushworth’s Jean Sprague and Kyabram’s Jenni Dixon are the four skippers through to today’s finals of the Goulburn Valley Bowls Division’s Women’s State Pairs at Murchison.

Twenty pairs were broken up into five sections to start the competition on Wednesday and sectional play matches were a best-of-15-ends format, but the remaining matches will be fought out over 18 ends.

Sprague and lead Mavis Marshall won section two, Graus and lead Bernadette Nichols won section three, and Dixon and lead Judy Jarvis won section four.

These three pairs were drawn to go straight into the semi-finals, but Collier and her partner, East Shepparton’s Elsie Gale, had to play off against Stanhope skipper Jenny Crilly and lead Glenda Patterson yesterday.

The match was neck-and-neck in the early stages, but Collier and Gale pulled away to win 25-15 from 17 ends.

‘‘We were level the first eight or so ends and then we got a couple of big numbers, a five and a four, which gave us a bit of a lead and we really kept that lead from there,’’ Collier said.

‘‘All four of us bowled well early on. Jenny and Glenda had a bit of bad luck, every time they were headed for the jack it would go the opposite direction to us.

‘‘They had good bowls as well, just the luck wasn’t going with them.’’

Today’s semi-finals will see Sprague and Dixon do battle, while the Mooroopna skippers, Collier and Graus, are pitted against each other.

‘‘We’ll just play our own games. Me and Elsie have played a bit together and we know how each other plays and I’ve also seen Willy play as well,’’ Collier said.

‘‘The aim is just to go out and do our best and hopefully get over the line.’’

The semi-finals will start at about 8.30am and the start time of the grand final will be determined by the weather.