Fleet win against champions to stay top
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With a stormy forecast round six of the Sutherland Province Leagues at Inverness Ice Rink on Monday night was cut to six ends to allow an earlier finish and safer journey home.
Brora, Loch Fleet and Rogart returned with wins to their name and two more league points which kept Loch Fleet at the top, moved Brora up to third place and saw Rogart rise to fourth.
Helen Lyon’s Loch Fleet were tackling the reigning champions from Locheye skipped by Richard MacKenzie and she was on her way to another win despite the restricted six ends when her rink of Emma Deeth, Colin Wilson and husband Scott Lyon won the first two ends with double counts before the Locheye champions opened their account with a single in end three.
Singles were exchanged in the next two ends then a steal in end five by Lyon put her 6-1 in front before another two points were secured despite MacKenzie’s late double in the final end. Loch Fleet now have eleven points from six games and remain one point ahead of Locheye’s second Skip, Alan MacKenzie.
MacKenzie with Willie Macrae, Heather Macrae and Christine MacKenzie were left with two shots in the sixth and final end to beat Dave MacLennan leading the North Highland Curling Trust’s second rink. The tie was at three shot peels when entering the final sixth end where the Locheye Skip got a let off when MacLennan’s final draw stone to lie shot clipped a guard leaving the Locheye stones intact.
The Trust’s first rink, skipped by former champion Hugh Mackay, also went down when playing a rejuvenated Alness under Coreen MacRae. MacRae had the previous week moved away from the foot of the Ross Shire A League table and she kept her form to work with her teenage daughter Julia, John McHarg and Brian Weaver to take a 4-2 lead through four ends. When MacRae stole in the next end the points were in the bag despite losing a final end single.
Holding onto third place, Neil Murray’s Brora are, like Locheye’s MacKenzie waiting for any slip up by the Loch Fleet table toppers.
In a key game for fourth place against previously fourth placed Dornoch, the Brora Skip backed up by Roy Watson, Denise Ross and Val Murray, moved above and a point ahead of Dornoch with the biggest score of the night over six ends. Four shots were scored in end five by Brora then a closing double overwhelmed Stuart Gardiner’s Dornoch 9-1 which dropped Dornoch back to fifth place.
Another former league champion, Nigel Murray, climbed to fourth place with a 7-3 win over the Ross/Sutherland Young Farmers who were without regular Skip, Alan Munro. Rogart sealed their win with a closing three shots.
League Table points: Loch Fleet 11, Locheye (2) 10, Brora 9, Rogart 7, Dornoch 6, NHCT (2) 6, Alness 6, NHCT (2) 3, Locheye (1) 3, NHCT (1) 3, Ross/Suther YF 2.
