League and cup action on Moray Province curling rinks

Aberlour’s Andy Cameron advanced to the quarter-final of the Moray Province Open Knockout with a big win over Wilson Burnett on a strangely mild Hallowe’en at Moray Leisure Centre.

The Fochabers rink could not hit the proverbial barn door and were only able to avoid a whitewash courtesy of a single shot at the last end in a 10-1 drubbing.

Steve Rankin was another big knockout winner, casting a spell on Eddie Milne in a 9-2 victory.

The night’s only close contest saw experienced skip Alan Durno narrowly prevail against young pretender Charlie Watt jnr.

On tricky negative ice and tied at 5-5 in the last end, Watt’s team looked to be sitting pretty with a well-guarded counter as Durno's fourth player Mike Watt made ready to play the game’s final stone.

With a big swing on the out turn and the shot stone covered by a long guard, the wily Watt laid a beauty that passed the guard and swung perfectly to chip out Watt’s stone and give his team a two-shot victory.

Rarely in this column do curling teams' front ends receive much attention and two of the best showed their form in this week’s Moray Province League battles.

Andy Cameron’s lead John Sharpe laid the foundation as the Aberlour rink raced to 13 unanswered shots before a consolation three at the last, at least gave a slightly less bitter taste to the Elgin Tennis Club’s late night hot chocolate.

Playing at second in Bill Jaffrey’s Fochabers rink, Fiona Ewan is arguably the team’s most consistent performer and was instrumental in an against-the-odds win over last year’s East champions Kenny Oswald.

On ice that was very much in favour of a drawing game, the Fochabers rink opened with a three before falling behind as the Elgin unit scored at each of the next three ends.

Another three at the fifth and then a steal of two saw the Speysiders go down the last with a healthy four-shot lead.

Lead player Gary Burnett, then Fiona Ewan shored up the front of the house to allow skip Wilson Burnett to play a killer last stone draw and Oswald could only score a single in an 8-5 Fochabers win.

Steve Rankin’s Buckie rink went one better than Andy Cameron with a 14-3 demolition of an understrength Sunninghill team.

Three separate counts of four gave the coasters an easy victory to consolidate their position as joint league leaders.

Results

Moray Province Open Knockout

S. Rankin 9 E. Milne 2

A. Durno 7 C. Watt jnr 5

A. Cameron 10 W. Burnett 1

R. Stewart w/o G. Kennedy

Moray Province East League

Division 1

D. Ross(Sunninghill) 3 A. Campbell (Buckie) 14

K. Oswald (Elgin) 5 W. Jaffrey (Fochabers) 8

A. Cameron (Aberlour) 13 D. McPherson (Elgin Tennis Club) 3

Moray Province West League

Division 1

A. Asher (Nairn) 6 J. Cattell (Nairn)5

A. Forbes (Nairn) 5 R. Greenwood (Ardclach) 4

Division 2

L. Kerr (Nairn) 5 I. Thomson (Dalcross) 4

M. McInnes (Nairn) 9 F. Steel (Nairn Ladies) 2