The month began with plenty of our sides making the pennant finals and finished with our Club winning a major Participation Award at the Victorian Open.
2023/24 Pennant Season and Notable Achievements
The highlights from this pennant season included:
16 sides in Inter-club competitions – Weekend Pennant, Midweek Pennant, Night Pennant & Thursday Sevens
12 sides in Finals
5 Premierships – Night Premier Division, Weekend Div 6, Weekend Div 7, Midweek Div 2, Thursday Div 1
4 Runners-Up – Night Div 1, Weekend Div 8, Thursday Div 1, Thursday Div 2
Nicole McKenzie – Sandbelt Region Pairs and Fours Champion (off to State Finals in both), Singles Runner-Up & BV City Rep
Jan Rolph – Sandbelt Champion of Champions Singles Runner-Up
Sandbelt Region Triples Runners-Up – Gordon Thomson, Will Scibberas, Michael Stevenson
2023 BPL Cup National Finalists – Rob Sharpe, Anthony Lee, Will Scibberas, Alan Veitch
Once again, thank you to our volunteer selection committees, coaching team and committee of management that all played a role in helping to deliver these excellent results this season. Thanks also to the dedication shown by most to training sessions and all of the support from passionate DC members around the greens at many of the big matches.
Congratulations to Nicole McKenzie who has once again been selected in the Women’s City Representative side – the VIC City side will play VIC Country in test matches at Bendigo East BC next weekend (6th & 7th April). Looking further forward, we wish Nicole all the best when she will take part in State Champions week (again in Bendigo) in the last week of April.
2024 Victorian Open
This week, the 2024 Victorian Open wrapped up and almost everywhere you looked around the Gippsland host clubs, you could see a Dandenong Club player or supporter. We had 32 players take part in the event and a number of supporters cheering on our players. Many of our players/teams made it through to the knockout rounds – the ones that went deepest into the event were:
Women’s Singles – Round of 32 – Annette McCormick, Nicole McKenzie
Women’s Pairs – Round of 16 – Nicole McKenzie
Men’s Triples – Round of 16 – Ben Lucas, Paul Meyers
Mixed Pairs – Round of 16 – John Curtain, Annette McCormick, Paul Meyers
Pleasingly, the Dandenong Club was also awarded one of the two inaugural Participation Awards at the end of the event for having the most players take part from any Club in Victoria! Well done to all those that entered. I’m sure that we’ll see plenty more DC shirts around the greens at the Australian Open on the Gold Coast in June as well (there is still time to enter that event).
Club Championships & Bowls Calendar
We are getting down to the pointy end of the Club Championships with the 100 Up Open Singles and Mixed Pairs getting down to the Finals stages. The Mixed Triples will be played as a one-day event with the Final to be played on a following day/evening. Please look out for the regular Club Championship email updates from Tex McClelland for the latest details on these events.
With so many players taking part in the Vic Open, it meant a slight delay to some events, but we are looking at all of the Finals being completed by the end of April. Tex has done a wonderful job in managing the Championships this year and he deserves congratulations for also adding a number of new events to this season’s program.
