TEAMS from Box and Stratton Churchway have qualified for the county ladies triples final at Devizes on July 25 and earned the right to represent Wiltshire at Royal Leamington Spa at the National Championships in August, writes DAVE EATON.

They booked their places last Saturday at the quarter-finals and semi-finals at Purton.

The Box trio - Karen Funnell, Jean Collier and skip Carol Grenfell, who lost in the 2011 triples final to Amesbury - knocked out Devizes, skipped by Sue Ochyra, 22-12 in the last eight and then beat a Wanborough triple, led by Deanne Davis, 15-13 in the last four.

In the bottom half, another Devizes trio led by Mary Jones lost 22-12 to Lesley Trattles (Wilton) while Stratton Churchway beat Wootton Bassett, skipped by Pat Edmonds, 19-15 and went on to blitz Wilton 22-6.

  • WILTSHIRE men made a superb start last weekend to their 2015 Middleton Cup campaign with a 21-shot win over Warwickshire.

Losing semi-finalists last year, the Moonrakers beat Warwickshire 131-110 on their own green at Rugby in their opening west group match.

Wiltshire took the honours on four of the six rinks to collect 18 of the 22 points on offer, the rinks of Mel Biggs (17 shots), Graham Shadwell (12), Neil Smith (10) and Ben Gadd (nine) all winning.

These easily covered the 23-shot loss suffered by Gary Morphet’s quartet and the four-shot loss of Russell Francis’ rink.

Delighted team manager Dave Snell said: “We couldn’t have asked for a better start to this year’s campaign. We said before the game that any type of win would be good, but to win on four rinks and secure a 18-4 result was a real bonus."

The team named for the second cup game on Saturday at Greenhill (Weymouth) against Dorset shows two changes, Craig Doughty (Holt) replacing player-manager Snell at number two in Graham Shadwell’s rink, with Snell reverting to lead in Biggs’s rink with Kyle Anderson unavailable.

  • THE FIVE youngest members of the successful Middleton Cup side at Rugby last weekend are named by Wiltshire selectors to compete in the regional final of the White Rose Trophy this Sunday.

The quintet of Gary Jackson, Kyle Anderson, Tom Warner, Nick Revell plus reserve Mike Titcombe are chosen, along with James Richman, Craig Morphet and Matt Daniell to contest the inter-county U25s national two fours (double rink) competition regional final at Bristol Bowls Club, Ashton Gate, on June 14 (10am).

Wiltshire, who beat Dorset in round one, have drawn Devon in the semi-final at Bristol while in the other semi, Cornwall face Somerset.

The two winners meet in the grand final in the afternoon with the regional winner progressing to the White Rose semi-finals at Royal Leamington Spa at the end of August.