Shedden and Sloan win Braehead Mixed Doubles

The Braehead Mixed Doubles concluded last night with an exciting final which went all the way to the last stone. Graham Shedden and Claire Sloan triumphed in the end over Lindsay Gray and Lauren Gray by 5 shots to 3.

Lindsay was substituting for brother Logan who had topped section C with 3 wins out of 4 and he made his presence felt in the semi-final almost immediately when he and Lauren took a full house of 6 off the holders, Hannah Fleming and Billy Morton, at the second end! However, Hannah and Billy responded well and with a pair of 3s they took the game to the end only to lose by 7-9, which is not a bad total of stones for a 6 end game!!

In the other semi-final Graham and Claire defeated Scottish Champions Judith McFarlane and Lee McCleary by 8-3, and a bad day continued for the latter when they then lost the 3rd / 4th place play-off to Hannah and Billy by 9-1.

While the High Road, as described above, consisted of the three section winners and the highest up second place team from the three sections, the Low Road consisted of the bottom team in each section and was played as a semi-final between the worst performing two teams with the best team waiting for the winners in a final. John Brown and Dawn Watson defeated John Laverty and Linda Moffat 10-2 in the semi-final and then lost 5-4 to the Dutch pairing of Shari Leibbrandt and Carlo Glasbergen in the final, the Netherlanders extending their stay after the Edinburgh International for a bit of extra competition.

And what of the other 8 teams in the middle of the sections? Well their results from the Round Robin were carried forward and they were ranked into one big Schenkel table in which they played two further games. At the end of all that Gary Macfarlane and Sarah Reid emerged on top with Cathryn Guthrie and Alan Guthrie second.

Thanks at the prizegiving were given to all involved in organising the competition and to Leslie Ingram-Brown who has sponsored the event for the last three years and announced that he would continue to do so for another three years for which many thanks are given to Leslie.

And now for me it is on to Stranraer for the I'Anson Trophy, organised by the Preston Curling Club.