New South Wales dominate triples at Australian Championships

by Val Febbo on May 24, 2021

New South Wales has taken a clean sweep of the triples events at the 2020 Australian Championships with exquisite consistency and brutal victories in both the men’s and women’s events at Dandenong Club.

The women’s trio of Kate Matthews and BCiB Jackaroos Genevieve Delves and Natasha Van Eldik overcame the Northern Territory’s Colleen Orr, Jen Sullivan and Karen Lane 25-4 in the first match of Monday morning.

Following that, the tricky Queensland collective of Chloe Stewart, Claire Turley and Jess Srisamruaybai proved strong early, but with proceedings tied at 4-4 Matthews led the charge with some superb leading to help the squad to a 20-7 victory.

With just a victory needed to seal the gold medal with a match to play, the Victorian team of Pat Virtue, Muriel Williams and Faye Richardson streamed out to an early 7-2 lead before a run of nine straight ends snuffed out any chance of a Victorian win.

New South Wales took a 20-10 win thanks to brilliant tactics creating longer ends and nailing their spots.

They would face Tasmania to finish the tournament undefeated, and they made sure of the emphatic championship with a closely fought 16-14 win.

The silver medal went to Tasmania, who held off a fast finishing Queensland on the table on shot differential.

New South Wales skip Natasha Van Eldik delivered a pivotal bowl in the eighth end of her match against Victoria, going close to the ditch and going from three down to one up, turning the encounter.

“It was massive really, that could have changed the entire game drastically but it changed it in our favour, we needed to win the end and go tee to tee, which we did,” she said.

“We won the next the next nine ends from there and that set us up to come home strong.

“The girls played awesome all day and against quality opposition as well, it’s awesome to come out undefeated.”

Meanwhile, in the men’s sectional draw, Corey Wedlock, Gary Kelly and Brendan Aquilina commenced slowly against South Australia’s trio of Nathan Black, Sam Dietrich and Craig Mills dropping the opening seven shots of the match.

The squad would storm home to take a 21-15 win before a second round bye ahead of the team’s final sectional matchup against the ACT, in which they romped home to a 32-4 win after just 16 ends.

They would meet Tasmanian trio Mark Nitz, Rob McMullen and Will Coad in the gold medal match, and after one of the most titanic encounters of the day they proved too strong to win 15-10 and complete the state’s clean sweep in the first discipline of the competition.

Victorian trio of Nathan Wilson, Matt Wilson and Dane McKinnon took home the bronze medal following an emphatic 27-13 win over the ACT.

Corey Wedlock was jubilant after the epic final, and is relishing playing on such a fantastic surface, claiming his maiden national title with close friends.

“That was a terrific game, it could’ve gone either way, there were singles everywhere and Nitzy played some absolute bombs,” Wedlock told Rinkside Live.

“There’s no complaints about the surface, it’s an awesome facility.

“The three of us are extremely close mates and we play frequently at Warilla, I’m stoked to get my first national title.”