Aradale Red has booked its place in the Grampians Bowls Division grand final after it defeated Stawell by seven shots in the preliminary final on Saturday.
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Stawell got off to a good start thanks to Andrew Cray when he built a nice lead against Brett Sladdin early in the division one match.
Cray eventually finished ahead by 13 shots to give Stawell the early scoreboard advantage.
Stawell's Andrew Sharp faced Gary Jamieson in the second rink with the lead from the first rink reduced after the Aradale bowler finished six shots ahead.
Aradale Red went into the final rink trailing by seven shots with Andrew McCarthy needing a big win to move his team into the lead.
McCarthy handled the pressure on his way to a big 14-shot win against Donny Austerberry to end Stawell’s season with a 29 shots to 14 win.
The big margin meant Aradale finish 66 shots to 59 winners to progress to the division decider to face off against Stawell Golf Red on Saturday.
In the division two preliminary final it was Ararat Blue that finished winners against Stawell Blue in a 69-66 win on Saturday.
Ararat Blue started the match with a strong performance by Neville Harvey in the first rink against Ron Scantleton.
Harvey built a handy buffer as the rink went on and finished with a comfortable margin of nine shots to put pressure on Stawell Blue.
Ellen Werry was the one who had to try and steady the ship for Stawell but found it difficult at times to get the momentum on her terms.
Werry fought to try and level up the terms with a win but Ararat’s B Joyce did not make it easy and ended up making it two wins from two rinks with a 25 shots to 16 win to put Stawell on the back foot going into the final rink.
Ararat went into the last rink with an 18-shot lead and just needed to maintain composure to finish with the win.
Stawell were in an all or nothing situation and it showed with Angela Hodgetts playing some positive shots early on against Ararat’s Alan Grant.
Hodgetts extended the lead towards the end of the rink with an unlikely win looking like a possibility as the match went on.
The Stawell bowler ended up winning 30 shots to 18 but it was not enough to cancel out the two previous rinks leaving Ararat Blue the winners.
It sets up an Ararat Gold v Ararat Blue decider.
Both grand finals will be played at Ararat Bowling Club on Saturday.