There has been a change at the top of the metropolitan senior A pennant competition after results went in favour of the Otago B52s on Saturday.
They thumped Island Park 5-1 to move to 15 points, three clear of the St Clair Saints, who suffered their second loss — both within a week, and at home against the Otago Bombers.
With the run home to finals heating up with four rounds remaining, the win for the Bombers has them remaining third but now level with the Saints on 12 points.
Chisholm Links have jumped into fourth after beating Taieri Lakes at home.
At Balmacewen, the B52s made light work of Island Park, securing three early wins through Will McLauchlan, Isaac Hobbs and Lewis Harper.
Mat Weir sealed the team win, clinching a 2 and 1 win over Richard Olsen, before Park No 6 Michael Minty earned a scrappy consolation win for the visitors over Tom Gillan.
Andrew Hobbs (B52s) came from behind to beat Monty Wong on the final green, holing a 6m birdie putt.
At Chisholm Links, the home side won a game they needed to win and are now deep in the semifinal race.
Taieri Lakes started hot with big wins to Jarred Mitchell and Jarrod Haig.
But that was as good as it got with Luke Worthington, Jason Pegler and Mike Weastell winning their matches for Links and Kai Koni playing a solid final hole to make birdie against Josh Boath for a 1-up victory to secure the win for Links.
At St Clair, a busy finish featured the home side clawing their way back from defeat to force a playoff against their old foes, the Bombers. The visitors looked in the box seat most of the way with four matches decided on the final green.
Duncan Croudis and Ben Patston won their games with relative ease to put the Bombers in the box seat.
However, Saints veteran Tony Giles erased a significant deficit to beat Callum Judkins, and Parker Aluesi defeated Luke Murdoch to square the clash.
The top pairings played out halves on the final hole with Mat Crawford and Jacob Bellamy halving with Brandon Hodgson and Ryan Rosevear respectively.
Bellamy and Croudis met in the playoff and teed off the par-5 10th, Croudis two-putting from the fringe for a birdie while Bellamy’s 3m birdie putt was missed.
— Michael Minty
