THE Ovens and Murray representative bowls team will play at home in the annual Victorian teams championship this weekend.
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It attracts teams from the 16 groups throughout the state and will start at the Corowa Civic greens on Saturday morning.
There are four teams in each of four sections, with the section winners advancing to semi-finals on Sunday morning, followed by the final.
Ovens and Murray was toppled from winning its section last year by a narrow margin.
It faces stiff competition from Metropolitan West, Yarra and Geelong this year.
Metropolitan West takes in the traditionally strong Altona region, while Yarra includes the Kew, Camberwell and Heidelberg areas of Melbourne.
“We have got a pretty tough draw actually,” O and M chairman of selectors John Fisher said.
The team was picked after Ovens and Murray’s one shot victory against Goulburn Valley in their annual challenge.
It is a young team compared to recent years, with several promising players emerging at representative level.
The team is Chris Langdon (Rutherglen), Jason King (Wodonga), Maurie Braden (Wangaratta), Ian Brimblecombe (Wangaratta) s; Heath Smith (St James), Stephen Coulston (Wodonga), Scott Widdison (Corowa Civic), Ken Widdison (Corowa Civic) s; Ian Lewis (Corowa Civic), Josh Rudd (Wodonga), Thomas Webb (Corowa Civic) and Ashley Bates (Wodonga) s.
The father and son combination of Ken and Scott Widdison has been in superb form in pennant for Corowa Civic, recently playing off for the club championship.
Scott took control early to build a 9-1 lead before the match tightened up, with the younger Widdison still leading 20-15 after 21 ends.
But Ken picked up one, four and two shots on successive ends to hit the lead 22-20.
Scott fought back to level at 23-23, but his father managed two shots on the next end to seal it.
The Widdisons also combined to finish runner-up to Alec Martin and Ian Lewis in the pairs, going down 18-15.