York Indoor Bowls Club duo Charlie Bateman and Melanie Brooke have won through to the National Mixed Pairs Championship finals.

They beat Darlington's Alan Moor and Ann Anderson in the area play-off final, the Darlington pair conceding when Bateman and Brooke were leading 24-13 with one end remaining.

The York pair were 4-2 behind after five ends but recovered to lead 11-8 after ten and were 15-9 up after 15. With three ends to go they led 23-13 and won the next end after which their opponents conceded the match.

Bateman and Brooke will play in the national finals being held at Cambridge over Easter.

Ryedale's Mark Walton came from behind to beat York's David Stroughair 21-20 in a dramatic Yorkshire men's singles final at Thornaby. Stroughair led 10-5 after seven ends and then 19-11 and later 20-14, but Walton then won four ends in a row to take the trophy.

Ryedale Indoor Bowls Club at Norton hosted the Yorkshire County Under 18s tournament in which North east District won the Bellamy and Wright Trophy.

Comprising players from Ryedale, Scarborough and Thornaby, North east dropped only three points from nine games to finish with 15 points.

They were three points ahead of East district (Selby, North Cave and Hornsea/Hull) with Central (York, Nw Earswick and harrogate) third and South (Barnsley, Featherstone and Huddersfield) fourth in the round robin format.

Tony Fosdyck, president of the Yorkshire IBA, presented trophies to the winning North east team - Paul Humpreys, Robert Kirby, Huw Read and Phillip Slack (Ryedale), Carole McLean, Seb lee, Gemma Preston and Nicola Preston (Scarborough) and D Whitehouse, John Honeyman, Michael Finnegan and Robert Goldsmith (Thornaby).

The organiser of the competition was Eric Cookson.

New Earswick got ten league points when they beat Ryedale 96-68 in the Yorkshire Over-55s League.

Ray Clark, John Allan, Ray Bowman and Barry Johnson won 36-11 playing at home. They were 8-5 down after nine ends and then scored a seven followed on the next end by a six to lead 18-8 which they extended to 24-8 after 14 ends. Ryedale scored two on the next end but the home side regained their stride with two fours.

New Earswick's Bob Edwards, Bob Howland, Mick Stannard and Harry Rhodes won 18-15 at home.

They led 9-3 after eight ends, the visitors drew level at 10-10 after 12, then New Earswick went 17-11 ahead after 16 ends.

New Earswick's Colin Fawcett, Alf Lewis, Alistair Sugden and Ken Plowman lost 3717 at Ryedale, who led 27-8 after 15 ends.

New Earswick then scored a five but Ryedale hit back with four and three to lead 34-13. Fawcett's team won the last three ends but managed only a single shot on each of them.

Eric Ward, Ron Wood, Barry Harrison and Ralph Tiplady, of New Earswick, won 25-11 at Ryedale, who had a quarter of their rink score deducated because one of their players filed to turn up.

This made the final rink score 25-8 but the advantage still wasn't enough for New Earswick to take the aggregate away score.

Updated: 15:53 Thursday, March 22, 2001