It was not Gary Lawson's day. His Composite four failed to qualify for post-section play in the fours.
Lawson and his team of Ben King, Dan Delany and Shannon McIlroy had only one win on the first day of fours and needed three wins yesterday to qualify.
They were beaten 19-17 in their first game against the Leeston team of Stu Boon, Kevin Greenwood, Trevor Kennett and Colin Lowery and eliminated from the championship.
Lawson has won 10 national championship titles and shares the top spot with the great Nick Unkovich. He wanted just one more title to have it to himself.
''Nothing went right for us,'' Lawson said.
''Colin got a bare jack when it was 16-12 to us. Otherwise we would have won.
''On the last end we outplayed them but they got the rub of the green. I don't think we deserved to lose, but that's bowls.''
Lawson is a tactically shrewd fours skip and had a star-studded team with him but lost three close games. It was one of the rare times he has failed to qualify in the fours at a national championships.
''That's life, mate. It doesn't matter,'' Lawson said.
''At the end of the day it was meant to be.''
Lawson (48) has not given up the hope of winning that elusive 11 title and will be back again next year.
The 15th end, when Lawson had a four-shot lead, decided the game.
''We were three down on the head and I drove the kitty to the ditch for four shots,'' Lowery said.
''That was the turnaround for the game.''
The score was 16-16 and Lowery's team added two more shots on the next end before Lawson grabbed one back on the penultimate end.
Lawson was one point behind before the last end and had three shots on the head when Lowery drew the winning shot.
Lowery, a Mid-Canterbury grain farmer, started playing bowls in 1976 and was runner-up in the fours to Nick Unkovich and his glamour team of Rowan Brassey, Doug Richards-Jolly and Danny O'Connor in Christchurch in 1982.
Lowery is an accomplished bowler who has reached the semifinals at the national championships three times and won nine Canterbury titles.
He reached the post-section when he beat Dave Roxburgh's Finegand team 25-16 for his fourth win.
Russell Dawe's Composite Otago team of Trevor Ludlow, John Carvell and Mamanu Mamanu did a Houdini trick to beat Lawson on the first day of fours.
Lawson led 14-6 after 14 ends but Dawe snatched a two, four, one and three on the next four ends to win the game.
The Dunsandel team of Karolyn Boon, Pam Clarke, Serena Matthews and Sandra Keith qualified for post-section play with a come-from-behind 22-20 fourth win against Zenda West's Otago Composite team.
They trailed by two shots with two ends to play but gained a three on the penultimate end to take the lead and Keith pushed up her own bowl on the last end.
''I played that side of the rink for the whole game,'' Keith said. ''It was just a matter of getting the right weight.''
The West End team of Maurie Smith, Alan Gillespie, Don Johnston and Laurie Shanks, from Timaru, caused a minor upset when they beat the elite Composite team of Tony Grantham, Mike Nagy, Mike Kernaghan and Andrew Kelly 15-13.
It was 13-13 before the final end. Smith and Gillespie put the front bowls on the head and Kelly's team failed to remove them.
Both West and Kelly qualified for post-section play.
Other noted teams that failed to qualify were Alvin Gardiner (Composite), Kerry Becks (Kaikorai), Alistair Keith (Composite), Lou Robinson (Leith) and Wynette McLachlan (South Otago).
Post-section play begins this morning and the finals will be played on Thursday morning.
