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By Bill Hunt
Canadaeast news service

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There were no holes in the Moncton Fairlanes Mrs. Dunster’s Saturday afternoon at the Kingswood Lanes.

The Hub-based entry — the combined elements of two good Moncton teams which weren’t quite good enough a year ago — captured the championship at the 71st annual New Brunswick Alpine men’s candlepin bowling tournament.

Mrs. Dunsters jumped out to a 103-pin lead over Woodstock Bowlacade in the first string of the championship final Saturday and hung on to win the crown by 44 pins, 1,848-1,804.

Leadoff man Andy Babineau set the tone right off the top, posting a 153 opening string single, while Woodstock leadoff man Kirk Kennedy had a 99 to open.

Woodstock played catchup the rest of the afternoon — and never could.

“We just wanted to get to the finals, and after that, it’s anybody’s ball game,” said team captain Dave Warren.

“But it’s been a long hard day...a long hard week.”

Indeed. Dunster’s finished third overall in the Alpine Division with a 66-26 record in the round robin. They had to come from behind to beat the Campbellton Lions by 16 pins (1,879-1,863) in the quarter-finals and then built a big lead and hung on to beat Riverview Parklanes by 27, 1,854-1,827 in the semis.

They used a similar strategy in the final, rolling an impressive 706 in their first string to 603 for Woodstock.

In addition to Babineau’s strong leadoff, Jay Melanson, the third man in the order, outbowled Woodstock veteran Romeo LeBlanc 141-114, and anchor Chris McGrady – a teammate of LeBlanc’s on three previous championship teams earlier in the millennium — topped his opposite number, B.J. Hamilton, 145-113.

Woodstock chipped away at the lead, but it was too big a deficit to make up.

Even the two who were beaten head to head in that first string — Warren, bowling second, and fourth man Scott Estabrooks — were beaten by single digit margins. Corey Smith beat Warren 130-128 and Peter Kidney got by Estabrooks 147-139.

Woodstock made inroads the rest of the way — they won the next two strings in fact, 610-569 in the second, to get the deficit down to 62 pins and 591-573 in the third — but lost the trophy on total pinfall.

McGrady said his fifth championship — he won in 2001, 2003 and 2004 with Kingswood — was “just as sweet.”

The 103 pin lead off the top “was a very big help,” said McGrady. “That was our object. We wanted to get out of the gate. We did that in the semifinal against (Riverview) Parklanes, and unfortunately, we fell asleep in the third string and we almost let them back into the match. We didn’t want to repeat the same thing again.”

They staggered a bit in the second string. In fact, before the seventh frame, McGrady, the anchor, remember, was flexing his right hand and appeared to be in considerable discomfort.

“I haven’t eaten...I’ve just been going on liquids,” said McGrady. “I ended up getting a cramp in my hand that I couldn’t work out for a while.”

The early deficit proved fatal for Woodstock, the top team in the Alpine division in the round robin with a record of 76-16.

The third and final string was close, but Dunster’s had accumulated enough of a lead to clinch the win.

“We thought we had a chance,” said Kennedy. “We came here to win it. We thought we had a team to win it. But we fell a little short. ...”

In the end, Babineau beat the Kennedy combo 387- 322; Woodstock’s Corey Smith edged Warren 364-361; Moncton’s Melanson and Woodstock’s LeBlanc finished dead even at 358 each; Woodstock’s Peter Kennedy edged Moncton’s Scott Estabrooks 384-367; and Woodstock anchor Hamilton edged McGrady 376-375.

“This is the first win for me and it’s special to have the family here to see it,” said Melanson, whose wife Carrie and three daughters, Rebecca, 10, Sydney, seven, and Madison — two on May 13 — gathered round as he savoured the victory. “I missed them all week,” he said.

Woodstock got by the host Kingswood Hitmen in quarter-final play earlier in the day, 1,854-1,823, and defeated Dieppe Bowlarama 1,844-1,667 in the semis.

Dieppe knocked off the defending provincial champion Saint John Shock 1,754-1,714 in the quarter-finals after the Shock had finished first in the Moosehead division with a 75-17 mark.