By Casey O'Connor
Croquet players certainly made the most of the excellent conditions in Stanthorpe last week.
And players were out in numbers throughout the week.
It began on Tuesday (17 Aug) Association Croquet.
Grace Howard and Effey Russell played a very close game against the pairing of Carol Verwey and Jenny Tunbridge.
Howard had her eye in early scoring a run of three hoops which were closely followed by another run of two, which helped put her team in front and clinch the game 24-23.
Tunbridge played well, scoring a run of two hoops in a row three times during the course of the game.
On Wednesday (Aug 18) the Golf Croquet group took over and welcome a new face and prospective player, Judy Pidgeon.
Judy scored one hoop in her first game who managed to score 1 hoop in her first attempt at the game and the group is hoping she will become a regular.
Two games were played simultaneously to accommodate the 10 players rolled up ready to play at 9am.
Bev Sullivan (4), John Colman (3) and Shirley Page (4) proved too strong in their game against Pauline Inglis (1), Judy Pidgeon (1), and Jennifer Gleadhill (5).
Gleadhill hit a top shot at an acute angle to score a hoop.
It is a tricky manoeuvre as there is only half a centimetre clearance when the ball runs the hoop.
In the second game, Di Wren (10) and Kim Foster (2) faced opponents Shirley Evans (4) and Liz Ellway (7).
In a very tight match, Evans showed her skill by scoring a jump shot.
Wren and Ellway were on form with their high scores.
After the morning tea break, eight players stayed on and enjoyed a final game.
Wren (5) and Evans (4) played strongly against the combination of Gleadhill (3) and Ellway (4 ) scoring a narrow win.
Inglis (4) and Colman (4) suffered a one point loss in their game against Foster (5) and Sullivan (4).
The Ricochet crew took over on Thursday. Carol Verwey and John Colman played Jenny Tunbridge and Sharyn Roser.
Tunbridge and Roser got away to a healthy lead and despite some accurate long shooting by both Verwey and Colman, managed to get both their balls through all hoops first.
As they worked to get both their balls in a favourable position to peg out, Tunbridge accidentally pegged out their blue ball, leaving their black near the peg forcing forced Verwey to take a shot at it (black).
She missed and black was pegged out on the next turn.
The final score 26 -16. Verwey and Tunbridge each had one run of three hoops.
Roser had two runs of two, and one run of three.
