Victoria Point Magpies Jade Groenewege and Sean Baker have become the first players to win back to back Australian Championships Pairs, after recently taking out the title at the Merimbula Bowls Club, NSW. Jade and Sean won the event in 2018 and entered the 2019 QLD State Pairs with the outside hope of getting a chance to get back to Merimbula and defend their title.
Our Magpies managed to swoop their way into the State Pairs final earlier in the year, but were certainly up against it playing against International players Ryan Bester and Kevin Anderson, booking their spot back to Merimbula and the opportunity to defend a National title.
In the sectional play, our Magpies drew the Northern Territory, Tasmania and Australian Capital Territory and seemingly cruised through the sectional play with wins against the NT +9, Tas +8 and ACT +15. In the final the QLD combination were up against Aaron and Kane from South Australia, who battled their way through the tough section which included NSW, Victoria and WA, going through undefeated and obviously playing very well.
But our Magpie had one hand on the trophy and came out the blocks firing, picking up a 5 on the first of 15 ends and had scored 9 shots before their opposition got on the board. It was a tight tussle from there, with our Magpies maintaining control over the game, until the opposing SA skip started drawing some great shot and starting to slowly tick their score over. The SA combination didn’t count on Jade Groenewege turning up the heat, drawing some absolute hum dinger shots to rip the game away from SA and give our Magpies a 9 shot lead playing the last end….which obviously didn’t get played and our Magpies were crowned 2019 Champions, successfully defending their national title!
Well done Jade and Sean, what a great achievement and we are proud to call you Magpies! Carn the PIES!
