Garioch's McDougall misses out on Scottish Junior Singles final place
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James McDougall just failed to beat Bradley Buchan of Fraserburgh in the Scottish Junior Singles semi-final, writes Mike Barron.
He went down in a competitive match 16-21 to the eventual winner.
Buchan is a regular in the Scottish Junior and Gents international teams, and holds a bronze medal from the World Junior International Championship.
McDougall beat players from Abbeyview 21-10, Arbroath 21-4, Midlothian 21-18 and East Lothian 21- 9 to reach the semi-final.
In other matches, the Garioch Senior Men’s team lost out again and were well beaten by Buchan at home and now are on their own at the bottom of their Scottish league.
The score 50-70.
The match promised much in the early stages, Garioch being five shots up at the 6th end.
All four rinks were drawing well but Buchan started to get the carpet, and by end 11 Garioch were down seven shots.
The score 38-45.
They now have to play Inverness away, Turriff away, and league leaders Fraserburgh at home, all before Christmas.
Inverness are the surprise team this year, winning four of seven matches, including having beaten Garioch at Inverurie.
From the11th end the result was never in doubt.
Two rinks however could have gone either way.
Gary McDonald won by two shots 16-14, while Graham Coutts likewise won by two shots, finishing 15-13.
Garioch’s Gary McDonald with Bob Waiter. Gary Horne, and Ron Booth were down 6-9 at 9th , but scored 1,2,2,1 to lead 12-9, and they kept their lead for the remainder of the match, despite losing a bad 3 at the 15th.
The final end was close, but McDonald drew with his last bowl to win the match by two shots.
Rink 5, being an end rink, is always difficult, especially in long ends, but Graham Coutts won 10 of the 17 ends, finishing 15-13.
Robert Milne, as lead drew well, Peter Craig had four fine ends in the middle of the game, while Ian Western was as steady as ever.
Gordon Sievewright had Reid and Smith at the front end with Arthur Murrison at third.
It is hard to believe that any team level 8-8 at the 9th could finish 9- 21.
They lost all remaining ends bar one when they scored a single.
It started from the 12th when they lost 3, then 2, followed by 4 shots.
Last week Sievewright had a great game, but this week he was not drawing well, and in the opinion of a former player, was firing too often.
Several times he failed to take out scoring bowls when a drawing bowl could have cut down the number of shots against.
Can the Garioch take points from the 3 remaining matches this year?
They will only do this if all four rinks play better
