Sports reports: Murray Bridge seniors tennis has an ace start

This story includes contributions from Rosemary Daish, Derek Vanderzon, Phil Michell Motorsport Media, Michael Potts and Daniel Irvine.

An ace start has been achieved on opening day for the Murray Bridge and Districts seniors tennis.

The weather was perfect and much camaraderie made for good tennis shots, as president Rod Williams welcomed 12 players.

At the annual general meeting, Williams presented the annual Mort Daly Memorial Trophies.

Recipients were Rosemary Daish and John Owens.

Seniors tennis is scheduled to be held on the second Sunday of the month.

The next event will be an invitation day on November 9, with 10am registration for a 10.30am start.

The community is encouraged to come and try tennis on the well manicured lawn courts at Sturt Reserve – you only need to be 30 years of age or older.

Karoonda take their first win in lower Murray bowls

Murray Bridge have made easy work of Jervois in their round two Lower Murray bowls clash, with the visitors struggling to come to terms with the fast-paced greens and slumping to a 78-35 loss.

Andrew Stasinowsky might have been a little apprehensive facing his old team, but along with Brian Traeger, Helen Lindner and Ben Traeger had little to worry about as he romped away to a 32-8 win against Graeme Herbert, Jeremy Scannell, Rod Harris and Stuart McCulloch.

In an ominous sign Herbert trailed the jack on the third end, going from two up to five down, and very little went right from thereon.

Three successive threes had Staz out to a 20-2 lead before the break, and four more multiples in a row blew the lead out to 26 shots after 15 ends.

Herbert scored his only multiple, a two on the 19^th end, to slightly ease the pain.

Darren McIntosh, Tony Trewren, Troy Penhall and Paul Smart also ran out easy winners with a 28-15 score over Tim Hicks, Heather Fromm, Bruce Smith and Neil Morris.

Macca was out to an early 8-1 lead after four ends, but a pair of threes to Hicks had them draw level, three ends later.

But the comeback was short-lived as Maccas team rattled off the next nine ends in a row to kill the contest and take a 24-8 lead.

Honours were even over the last few ends.

Aaron Jones, Bruce Attrill, Charlie Di Santo and Brian Leckie completed the whitewash, although they had a much tougher time of it with an 18-14 win over Derek Vanderzon, Shawn Hicks, Graham Schenke and Graham Fromm.

Vanderzon opened with two singles, but a four to Jones started a run of five successive ends taking him to a 10-2 lead.

Vanderzon closed to within two shots, but Jones always had the answers to maintain a slight buffer.

Karoonda had their first win of the season, 59-50 away over RSL.

Erin O’Malley, Garry Mason, Damon Fromm and Malcolm Waechter led the way with a 23-13 win over David Thiele, Michael Walker, Gillian Newell and Phillip Day.

O’Malley won the first three ends to lead 4-0, and the rest of the match was in much of a holding pattern until the last three ends when O’Malley again took control with a trio of twos to extend the lead.

Thiele closed within two shots on a couple of occasions, but never took the lead.

Rowan Zadow, Rohan Tomkinson, Jayden Turner and Barry Cornish were 23-15 winners over Jason Sipos, Matthew Wynne, Kerri Bolt and Garry Daniel.

Zadow was well in control until the 14th end, when a six to Sipos reduced a 10-shot deficit to just four.

Sipos closed to within two shots with four ends to go, but Zadow steadied with scores of two, three and two to re-establish control.

David Graham, Ann-Marie Kuchel, Cooper Galbraith and David Newell prevented a clean sweep with a 22-13 win over Ian Symonds, Belinda O'Malley, Don Loller and John Wegner.

Graham dropped the first three ends to trail 5-0, but gradually got on top and had taken a two-shot lead by the break.

Apart from a three to Symonds on the 14th, Graham continued on his way after the break and extended his lead as the match progressed.

The final match saw Mannum defeat Tailem Bend 61-54, winning on two rinks.

Jake Koivumaki goes streets ahead in MJS Series

Saturday was the fourth night of action for the season at Murray Bridge Speedway, with the opening round of the MJS Street Stock Series and the 360/LS sprintcars featuring along with wingless sprints and junior sedans.

All classes received great support, with more than 80 cars in the pit area, therefore the racing was highly competitive all night long.

At the competition of the night, it was Northern Territorian Jake Koivumaki who upstaged the local contingent to claim the shortened 20-lap street stock feature, while Ben Morris won an exciting 360/LS sprintcars A-main.

Second place in the street stock event went to Drew Flatman, who was unable to repeat his opening night victory, while Neville Nitschke, Thomas Garner and Phil Watson completed the top five.

Sixth place went the way of Jayden Garner ahead of Curtis Brown, defending series champion Nigel Reichstein, Kye Richardson and Grant Harris.

Earlier, heat victories were shared between Watson, with two, Flatman, Brown, Nitschke and Koivumaki while Jarryd Farrell claimed the B-main.

The 360/LS sprintcar feature proved to be race of the night, with conditions providing the drivers to chance to race all over the track.

At one point the top four drivers were all racing hard for the win with sliders being traded, especially in turn one.

After leading early, pole-sitter Craig Vanderstelt found himself battling lapped traffic and eventually faded to third.

Once he got into the lead on lap 15, Ben Morris was unstoppable and he went on to win by over half a second ahead of Ryan Jones and Vanderstelt.

Jack McCarthy was the best of the LS powered cars in fourth, while Brendan Guerin, Victorian Phil Micalef, Mark Phillips, Zack Rogerson, Sam Martin and Bronson Mauro completed the top 10.

The four heat winners were Jones, Morris, Vanderstelt and Jack McCarthy.

The junior sedans were once gain split into top and new stars; Mildura racer Chloe McCarthy took a clean sweep of the new stars events, with two heat wins and the feature victory, while Henry Brumfield and Brodie Reichstein battled it out all night in the top stars as they shared the heat wins before Brumfield got the better of Reichstein in the final.

The wingless sprints were also out in force with 34 drivers in attendance, including the likes of current Australian champion Tyson Martin and dual champion Joel Chadwick, but it was a young Riverland racer who upstaged them all.

After starting from position five, Ryley Hammerstein drove a near-perfect race on the bottom side of the racetrack as he edged out Martin by 0.171 of a second to claim an unlikely win in his first start of the season.

Third place went to Rylan Furler, who claimed his second consecutive podium of the season, while Kaitlin Vickers, Tate Cowie, Chadwick, Jordon Bolotho, Thomas Walkom, Casey Atkinson and Darryl Sloan rounded out the top 10.

The heat winners were Sam Martin, Brett Ireland, Jesse Alexander, Hammerstein, Cowie and Furler.

The next event on the speedway calendar will be on November 8, with the formula 500 King of the Bridge the main feature along with round two of the MJS Street Stock Series.

Another day, another winner at Murray Bridge Golf Club

The handicapping system is doing its job.

There aren’t many repeat winners popping up these days, with Saturday revealing another first-time victor in Bradley Swain, who was successful in a par competition.

Very happy that his putter was paying its way for a change, Swain needed every bit of his brilliant score of +6 to fend off a pair of fellow C graders who had nipped at his heels and ended up just a stroke away from spoiling his party.

Winners are grinners, however, and it was Swain’s turn to mount the winner’s podium.

Par comps can often bring the higher handicappers into play, with the shorter course helping them reach more greens in regulation and score better.

Poor old Justin Elliott racked up a brilliant +5 but had to be content with C-grade runner-up as he was pipped by yet another Poharama who has burst onto the scene.

Cameron Poharama has now joined the rest of his family in playing golf and he certainly made his presence felt in a big way, shooting the lights out.

A +5 back nine won him the pro comp and, not content with that, he then upstaged the field on the 14th hole to also win the yabby with a delightful tee shot.

Beginner’s luck?

We will see.

Another eagle was scored by Anthony Edwards on the easy-ish – for the A-graders – par five eighth hole to win him another bunch of Pro V1 balls from the eagle’s nest.

It will be back to the Stableford format for everyone this Saturday.

Warm weather wears down rifle shooters

Another day of difficult weather conditions awaited shooters this past weekend at the Deed Range at Monarto as the Murray Bridge Rifle Club shot the 14th round of its championship from 800 metres.

The top two shooters in TR were only separated by centres, with Robert Paech pipping Greg Traeger 91.07 to 91.05.

It was Jasamine Irvine who snuck through to claim the handicap award, however, with her 88.05 giving her a final score of 103.4.

In F-class, Mark Nesti led the way with a 56.04 in his first round to finish top off-rifle in F-open with 109.05, and to claim the handicap award, two points ahead of Gordon Harrison.

Harro didn’t finish empty handed, he also shot a 56 in his first round and was top off-rifle in F-standard.

Not going home empty handed either, although they might have wished they did, were Magpie Award winners Mark Whittle (three) and Frank Marshall (two).

In the previous week, Murray Bridge shooters finished on top in three of four categories as the club welcomed visitors from Mount Barker for the first stage of the District Rifle Association Championship.

Cricket is back for the Murray Towns Cricket Association

Mypolonga 10/193 lost to Mannum 6/219

• Mypo best: Aaron Zrim 60, Lachlan Zrim 3/53
• Mannum best: Zak Muirhead 73, Max Worthley 5/22

Monarto 10/127 lost to Wanderers 3/131

• Monarto best: Matthew Doyle 23, Connor Bailey 2/12
• Wanderers best: Benjamin Trenorden 53, Tom Watkins 5/32

Ramblers 10/172 defeated Jervois 10/107

• Ramblers best: Bayde Ellis 44, Brayden Smith 5/31
• Jervois best: Simon Gibbs 50*, Luke Zadow 4/43

Tailem Bend 9/190 defeated Meningie 9/182

• Tailem best: Lucas Piggott 72, Umesh Badu 4/35
• Meningie best: Tom Rankine 110, Tyson Bradley 3/19

Murray Bridge lawn tennis results

• Schools defeated Postel 5-4
• Swanport defeated Sportsman 6-3

Email your sports reports to peri@murraybridge.news.