In an action packed day, three Victoria pairs battled hard at the Wilton greens to keep the Wellington Open Pairs silverware resulting in a 20th Centre title for Helen King and 1st Centre title for Nina De Munnik when they defeated Chris Commane and Sandra Pritchard (Petone Central) in the Womens Final 22-10. Some brilliant draw play from Helen in particular saw them looking comfortable in their semifinal and final after surviving a nail-biting quarterfinal win. She becomes just the 4th Women to reach 20 Wellington Centre titles!
The Petone Central pair had come through a gripping semifinal epic against Hayley May and Janice McKenna who fought back from 12-16 down with 2 ends to play to force an extra end. The efforts of Nina, Helen, Hayley and Janice have possibly moved Victoria marginally back in front in the Womens Club of the Year race after Johnsonville’s big Open Triples weekend last weekend.
Victoria were close to repeating last year’s double with father and son Wayne and Jamie Coleman reaching the final making an emphatic comeback in the semifinal from 7-12 down to win 22-12. Unfortunately Jamie was not able to pick up his 1st senior title to go with his 3 back-to-back-to-back Development Pairs titles, as they went down to Roger Jones and Marc Geerlings (Stokes Valley) 12-18.