Love comes to Lithgow

Lithgow gateball compLove was in the air when Lithgow Croquet Club staged its first ever gateball competition over the Valentine’s Day weekend.

With seven teams in the competition, organisers were faced with a challenge to schedule a full two-day competition. After the seven team round robin games were completed, a modified 7 team seeded double elimination was played.

The winning Mountain Mallets

The winners – Mountain Mallets

The final saw Mountain Mallets (a composite team of Lithgow, Blue Mountains and a Jamberoo player) facing the Jamberoo team. Jamberoo started strongly and Mountain Mallets seemed very much the underdogs. More by accident than design 3 members of the local team failed to enter the field of play in the first two rounds. Skilfully, Penny Park played tight to the line with ball six and held that position as her team mates rallied round to capitalise on the advantage she had won in controlling gate two. The game remained very tight with the Mallets team scraping an 8-7 win.

JamberooThe Jamberoo team were strengthened by young Queenslander, David Hughes. His in-game coaching of Jamberoo captain Manuel Gutierez was acknowledged by the Jamberoo team who thanked him for driving down to play with them.

Lithgow Lightnings, a team including a majority of players who have only taken up the game in the last nine months, put in ever more creditable performances as the weekend progressed. Having been drubbed by Canberra in Saturday’s game, the Lightnings recovered on Sunday and only lost to Canberra by three points. Their final game against the eventual winners was again close, with the Lightnings losing by a similarly small margin.

“The Lithgow club has been working hard to improve the quality of its lawns,” said club president Cindy Houston, “We were delighted that our first competition was such a success and look forward to many more in the future.”

Prime7 TV even came along to see the action. Here’s the news clip.

 

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