After an agonising crawl over the past few weeks, Moama finally burst to the top of the Bendigo Campaspe Goldfields Bowls Region Premier League at the weekend.
The Steamers had been slowly gaining on leader Bendigo since returning from the Christmas break, but emphatically returned to the summit with a dominant 16-82 to 2-78 win over its title rival.
Cameron Keenan’s quartet earned the largest margin for Moama, his squad of Barry Brennan (lead), Emma Simmonds (second) and Cassandra Millerick (third) scoring the win 22-9.
Fellow skips Matt Robertson (19-17) and Alex Marshall (22-18) also earned rink wins for Moama in a strong team performance.
Despite three rinks going the Steamers’ way, Bendigo skip Luke Hosking and his foursome almost salvaged the match single-handedly, his side pulling back almost all of the difference through a 34-19 rink result.
There are only two rounds of home-and-away action remaining, with Moama now 13 points ahead at the top, 162 to 149 over Bendigo in second.
Remaining matches against Eaglehawk (seventh) and Bendigo East (fifth) will favour the Steamers on paper as they roll into the finals, beginning on March 1.