LINDA Young from the Highworth club and Lucy Smith (Royal Wootton Bassett) have both reached the final of the Wiltshire county ladies singles.

It has ensured that a new name will be engraved on the county ladies singles trophy this season as neither the vastly experienced Wiltshire county player Young or youngster Lucy Smith have ever reached the final before.

The duo battled their way through to the last eight, quarter-finals and semi-finals held at Holt last Saturday to reach the final of the county ladies top event and also earn the right to represent Wiltshire in the national championships at Royal Leamington Spa next month.

Lucy, the elder of the two Smith sisters, who recently celebrated her 23rd birthday, is no stranger to county finals, having won the Wiltshire ladies U25 singles title for the past five successive seasons and six times in the last seven and was in superb form at Holt at the weekend.

She dispatched previous ladies singles winner Sue Cooke (Box) with a comfortable 21-9 victory in the top half of the draw and then in the semi-final beat North Wilts’ Ann Roberts-Phare 21-15, who had eliminated the reigning county singles title holder Deanne Davis (Wanborough) 21-15 in the quarter-finals.

In the bottom half of the draw Young had a tough time was taken to a last-end decider in both of her matches.

Young just managed to edge home on the last end 21-20 against Amesbury’s Janice Bull and repeated that performance in the semi-finals with another knife-edge 21-20 success over rising Box star Kathryn Yeoman, who had earlier thrashed Salisbury’s Jenny McShane 21-8.

Twenty four hours later Young completed a double, combining with Highworth clubmate Joanna Hicks (nee Richman) at Salisbury to book a place in the county ladies pairs final at Avon.

The other qualifier from the bottom half of the pairs last eight and quarter and semi-final half of the draw was the vastly experienced Box duo of Sue Cooke and Alex Jacobs.

Besides contesting the county pairs final at Avon on July 28, the Highworth and Box duos will represent Wiltshire at Royal Leamington Spa next month in the national championships.

In the top half of the draw Hicks and Young made a fast start to their quarter-final against Supermarine’s Nikki Kemble-Young and Bev Millen, leading 6-2 after six ends and 15-8 after 11.

They were always in control moving 20-12 ahead at 18, but then dropped a three and despite conceding a four on the last end still won 21-19.

In the semi-finals they faced Avon’s Georgina Newman and Marcia Hartley, who had beaten Purton’s Chris Mitchell and Alison Fail 23-12.

The Highworth pairing made a lightning start to lead 10-0 after five ends and never looked back dominating the game.

They were 16-3 up at 10 ends and 19-7 at 15 before running-out as 22-8 winners after 18 ends when the Avon pairing conceded.

Cooke and Jacobs, losing finalists in the pairs championships at the ladies nationals at Leamington last season, have won the county ladies pairs title four times previously and were runners-up in the final last season to Westlecot.

They were pushed all the way in their quarter-final tie.

Despite leading 13-8 at 10 ends they trailed Malmesbury’s Aileen Bates and Paola Meekins 16-13 after 14 and were tied 18-18 at 19 ends.

The Box duo then dropped a single on the next but grabbed a last-gasp last end win with a score of two to escape as 20-19 winners.

In the semi-finals Cooke and Jacobs blasted Wilton off the green, winning 25-4 after 16 ends to book their accustomed place in the county pairs final and national pairs at Leamington representing Wiltshire.

WILTSHIRE Ladies are on the brink of reaching the quarter-finals in the Johns Trophy, which they won back in 1995, for the first time for several seasons.

Today they face Somerset at Devizes (1.30pm) in their top of the table 'winner takes all' inter-county championship Johns Trophy West Group A decider.

Both Wiltshire and Somerset are locked together at the top of the table on 33 points from their two games to date after both recorded wins over Cornwall and Dorset.

Wiltshire hold top spot on shots difference so to win the group and qualify for the last eight is just win on overall shots over the six rinks and win on one of those six rinks.

Ten local players are included in the 24-strong Wiltshire team.

They are the Purton trio of Chris Mitchell, Julie Jones and Alison Fail, the recent winners of the Brirish Isles women’s triples championship, plus a threesome from the Highworth club of Maggie Jordan, Joanna Hicks and Linda Young.

The other four local players are Stratton Churchway’s Wendy Anderson and Janet Willis who were members of the 1995 Johns winning team. Plus Wanborough’s Deanne Davis and Royal Wootton Bassett’s Charlotte “Charlie” Godwin.

Despite the last game 134-96 win over Cornwall the Wiltshire county ladies Johns selectors have made two personnel changes and several positional switches.

Georgina Newman (Avon) is unavailable so Janice Rowe (Amesbury) comes in to replace her at number two with Jean Collier (Box) moving up into Newman’s spot at lead on the Marcia Hartley rink.

The Janet Willis rink that lost 21-17 to Cornwall has had a revamp.

Delia Godwin (Spencer Melksham) comes in to replace Susan Griffiths (Supermarine ) who reverts back to the reserves bench.

Deanne Davis (Wanborough) moves up from three into Griffiths place as lead. Viv Baskerville (Chippenham Town) stays at number two with Willis (Stratton Churchway) moving up to three from skip and Godwin coming in to skip the re-vamped rink.

The other four rinks are unchanged from the win over Cornwall.

Wiltshire Ladies are also through to the regional final of the Walker Cup (inter-county top county double rinks) competition which will be held at St Andrews (Weston-super-Mare) next Sunday (July 15) and will feature Warwickshire, Devon, Somerset and Wiltshire.

The semi-finals will be played in the morning and the final after lunch.

Wiltshire county selectors have made one change to the side that beat Cornwall in the previous round and switched a couple of players around.

They have brought in Sue Cooke at two in Alex Jacobs rink while fellow Box player Kathryn Yeoman moves across to Marcia Hartley’s rink and replaces Jean Collier at two.

Purton’s Chris Mitchell and Alison Fail retain their places in the Jacobs’ rink.

TEAMS

Johns Trophy v Somerset at Devizes, today (Sat, July 7 1.30pm).

Rink 1: Jean Collier (Box), Janice Rowe (Amesbury), Debbie Shadwell (Box) & Marcia Hartley (Avon). Rink 2: Ann Roberts-Phare (North Wilts), Wendy Anderson (Stratton Churchway), Sue Cooke & Alex Jacobs (both Box). Rink 3: Chris Mitchell, Julie Jones (both Purton), Janice Bull (Amesbury) & Alison Fail (Purton). Rink 4: Maggie Jordan (Highworth), Bev Lilley (Devizes), Jo Hicks & Linda Young (both Highworth). Rink 5: Ann Hindley (Wilton), Margaret Annetts (Salisbury), Charlie Godwin (Royal Wootton Bassett) & Kathryn Yeoman (Box). Rink 6: Deanne Davis (Wanborough), Viv Baskerville (Chippenham Town), Janet Willis (Stratton C) & Delia Godwin (Spencer Melksham).

Walker Cup regional semi-final

v Somerset July 15 at Victoria BC Weston-super-Mare

Rink 1: Georgina Newman (Avon), Kathryn Yeoman, Debbie Shadwell (both Box) & Marcia Hartley (Avon). Rink 2: Chris Mitchell (Purton), Sue Cooke (Box), Alison Fail (Purton) & Alex Jacobs (Box).

WILTSHIRE Ladies recorded their third successive victory of the season in this year’s South West Counties League with a narrow 123-121 victory over Worcestershire at Swindon's Westlecot club.

Wiltshire took the honours on three of the six rinks to secure a close two shots overall victory.

Delia Godwin (Spencer Melksham) led her rink to top spot with an 18-shot success. Second best was the foursome skipped by Stratton Churchway’s Janet Willis who won their game by six shots 23-17. The other success came on rink three from Trish Jarrett (Pewsey) who led her quartet to a three shots victory.

RESULTS (skips only)

Rink 1: Janet Willis beat J Drewer 23-17. Rink 2: Delia Godwin beat M Crowe 29-11. Rink 3: Trish Jarrett beat A Cartwright 20-17. Rink 4: Alison Fail lost to J Parfitt 16-21. Rink 5: Margaret Annetts lost to V Hall. Rink 6: Janice Rowe lost to S Cullis 15-30.

Score: Wiltshire beat Worcestershire 123-121 and by 16pts to 6pts.