Saunders & Van Asch headed to AUS Indoor Championships
The 2017 Tasmanian Indoor Qualifying commenced at the Burnie Bowls Club today. The women’s event is over for another year with two successful qualifiers gaining entry into the National event at Tweed Heads in August, while the men’s event is a third of the way through.
Kim Saunders progressed through the women’s event undefeated to take out the number one women’s qualifying spot. “I’m really chuffed to win the medal today, this is the first time I’ve won this event. I really like the surface here at Burnie and they’ve done a great job hosting this event” said Saunders after the days play.
“The Australian Indoor Championships is such a big event and I really enjoy playing in it so I’m really excited to get to go back and play again this year”
With entries down in the women’s event this year Saunders strongly urged more women to enter this event next year, “We had some great games today. I’d love to see more women enter next year it’s such a great event.”
Fellow Invermay clubmate Rebecca Van Asch, was our second woman to qualify today and is really looked forward to heading to the National event; “I’ve played a lot of bowls with Kim and she has had another fantastic season this year and she drew awesome on the carpet today. I’m really looking forward to heading back to Tweed with her, it’s always good fun when the ‘swampies’ are on tour and we can be there to cheer for each other.”
Van Asch was runner up at the Australian Indoor Championships last year and will be looking to go one better this year, “it was pretty gut-wrenching to lose the title by one shot on the last end of the tiebreak last year, so fingers crossed for this year. I’ll just be happy to see the Tasmanian’s at the tail end of the competition.”
The men’s event also kicked off today, with home town boy Mark Nitz the first man to win through his section. Also joining him on the winners list is Danny Neal, Jason Fowler and John Russell.
The remaining men’s sections will continue tomorrow from 9am at the Burnie Bowls Club before the knockout competition continues on Sunday to see who our three successful men’s qualifiers are.
