A 29-shot win by the Tongala outfit, against Moama, on Saturday in the round-nine clash has catapulted in from fifth to third in the space of three weeks.
And with five rounds of the season remaining it is now equal second on the ladder with Rich River, with daylight to the competition’s benchmark Echuca.
Echuca is unbeaten with eight wins, Rich River, Tongala and Deniliquin all having four wins and separated by just one point from second to fourth.
Echuca (117 points), is clear from Rich River and Tongala (65), with Deniliquin fourth (64) and Moama (52) still in the hunt.
Moama has been badly out of touch in recent weeks, since its round seven bye.
It lost to Echuca by 16 shots and then to Tongala on the weekend.
Two of its next three weeks, however, are against the bottom two teams of the six-team competition
The winner of this week’s Tongala and Deniliquin match will momentarily sit in the double chance spot if results go as expected and Echuca remains unbeaten from its round-10 match with Rich River.
Tongala was a 14-2 (82-53) winner against Moama, backing up its 16-nil (44 shot) win against Mathoura a week earlier. It has been a big turnaround, considering only a week prior it lost to bottom-team Rochester by a single shot.
Bradley Tinning was on fire alongside Geoff Tinning, Phil Cooper and Barry Tinning on Saturday, amassing 41 shots in a 24 shot win against Moama’s Mark Chaplin.
Coupled with the 23-17 win of Greg Lyon — his third successive win — it was enough to cancel out the one shot loss of Jack Hammond to Moama’s George Thornley.
∎ Echuca was a 12-shot winner against Mathoura, 14-2 (59-47), on the back of a triumphant return by James Ferrier.
With Phillip Thorn back in the third spot the rink was a 23-12 winner against Mathoura’s Chris Roberts, while Dennis Compton kept his status as the competition’s leading skip with a seven-shot win.
Mathoura’s Mick Humphreys won the remaining rink 22-16 against Echuca’s Ian Page.
∎ Rich River singificantly boosted its percentage with a 32-shot win against bottom-team Rochester in a repeat of the clash between the pair earlier in the year.
Rich River, now second, again won 16-nil (71-39) after Peter Nesbitt dented Kelvin Wiffen’s recent record 25-9 and Jason McCloy continued his fine season with a 12-shot win.
McCloy is the fourth-ranked skip in the competition, with a 5-2 record this season.
