E&L woes continue as they suffer fourth defeat in six

Edinburgh & Leith suffered a fourth defeat in six games in the Cities and Counties Bowls Championship, losing by 18 shots away to Stirling County East.

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Although the East section is the toughest in the event, the 2013 champions were expected to be among the leading contenders to claim a top-two qualifying spot. However, they’ll go into their final fixture trailing in sixth spot after their 128-110 defeat at Carron and Carronshore followed the previous week’s defeat at home to Midlothian.

Wining performances were served up on the rinks skipped by James Hogg and Robert Marshall but Mal Higgenbotham, Paul Veitch, John McDermott and team captain Paul O’Donnell all suffered defeat.

The final rink scores were: M McCauley 14, James Hogg 26; D Couper 18, Robert Marshall 21; S Thomson 25, Mal Higgenbotham 20; S Williamson 22, Paul Veitch 16; S Hogg 25, Paul O’Donnell 15; C Ross 24, John McDermott 14.

Meanwhile, East Lothian made sure of a top-two place with the section leaders making it five wins and one peel out of six with an impressive 127-112 win over Borders at Prestongrange.

That result allowed West Lothian to leapfrog Borders into second position by pulverising West Fife 146-91 at Crossgates.

Wins on all six rinks saw WL lead from start to finish with a highlight end being the tenth where a massive count of 15-4 accelerated them into a comfort zone lead of 30 shots (72-42).

Andy Dunnett led the WL charge to victory having included a full house count of eight at end 10 that inspired him to skip Ewan Shearer, Jordan Pearce and Walter McDougall to a 32-14 win over D Junor.

The other rink scores were: C Wilson 14, Grant Logan 18; P Brown 13, Stevie Fleming 20; A McIntyre 17, Ray Logan 25; JJ Watson 20, Thomas Mann 28; R McFarlane 13, Sandy McDougall 23.

Midlothian made it four wins out of six with a 120-105 win over Fife County at Polton.