Fourteen clubs entered this year's Province Medal with two rinks from each club playing different opposition and the scores aggregated. With this excellent number of entries two games were played at 3.30 with the Land O' Burns pipping Beresford Ladies by 2 shots and Troon Portland winning by the same margin against Ayr and Alloway. The others joined the competition at 6pm when similar winning margins were recorded with one exception. That came in the game between Stewarton Heather under Tom Reid and Robert Struthers' Tarbolton where the Stewarton rink, which included a junior, picked up a couple of big ends on the way to a 9 shot winning margin.
That gave those playing in the 8.30 session something to aim for !
For a while Keith Rennie's Fairywell looked as though they might do it running up a score of 8 - 0 after just 4 ends to add to the +4 in their first game but Andrew Baird's Crosshill came back at them to leave Fairywell with a combined score of + 10.
Much was hanging on the adjacent sheet where Dougie Reid's Stewarton rink were playing Land O' Burns. This turned out to be a very tight game with Colin Martin's Land O' Burns rink one up going into the eighth and last end without the hammer. Dougie, however, got his two to win 7 - 6 giving Stewarton a combined winning margin of + 10 and tied with Fairywell.
Meanwhile, over on sheet 2 Ayr and Alloway, under Ronnie Wilson, had raced into an eight shot lead against Jennifer Mutter's Symington rink and it looked as though they might be in contention too for a while but, on sheet 1, it was Mags Agnew's Sorn rink which was quietly racking up the shots against Peter Galloway's Gangrels rink.
Mags got off to a great start with a 5 in the first end and while the Gangrels' rink restricted Sorn to, mostly, singles, they lost a 3 in the last end allowing Sorn to finish with + 9 to add to the + 3 from Neil Kennedy's first round game and a combined score of + 12.
Sorn therefore, were this year's winners of the Province Medal and congratulations to them. Stewarton Heather took second place with Fairywell in third on account of Stewarton having scored 4 more shots than Fairywell.
For the record the remaining results were -
Troon Portland +5
Ayr & Alloway. +3
Galston. +1
Land O' Burns. +1
Dalmellington. -2
Dundonald. -3
Crosshill. -4
Beresford Ladies -5
Tarbolton. - 8
Symington. -9
Gangrels. -11
An entry of fourteen clubs was excellent and thanks to all who played. However, there is always space to accommodate more entries and hopefully we might see one or two more clubs next season.