A WEE COUNTY bowls team has been crowned Scottish champions after a thrilling final at the national centre of bowling at the weekend.

The championships took place in Ayr's Northfield Bowling Club with only the 'best of the best' making it out of the hundreds of clubs up and down the country.

Alloa East End ladies fours, winners of the district nine qualifiers, started their journey on Thursday when they played Stoneyetts with a 21-10 win moving on to a convincing win against Hurlford with an impressive 29-6 win.

Friday morning saw the top form continue with another comfortable win against West Kilbride with a 20-7 victory.

The competition then started to heat up with sights set on the gold medal.

Their next match would be against previous winners from Ayr Craigie.

Keeping the momentum going, the East End ladies made it through to the final by overcoming the previous gold medal winners by 21 shots to 16.

Saturday's final was never going to be an easy match with the scores tied very much throughout the game.

Glenmavis, who were favourites to win had an amazing shot by their skip to save the match and put them in front, only for East End's Eilidh Weir to counter that with a fantastic drawing shot taking the match to a tie break with even scores after 17 ends.

Taking it right to the wire, Glenmavis were again lying game. With her last bowl, the East End skip was composed, calm, took her time and probably played the shot of her life to make a fantastic draw, turning the jack to have them lying the match.

With gold now in sight, Glenmavis couldn't match the last shot and Alloa East End ladies were now the new Scottish Champions and Gold medal winners.

Eilidh Weir, team skip, said: "The week was never going to be easy but I knew if we just kept playing together as a team and stuck together we had every chance.

"We were playing against the best teams in Scotland and had it all to do.

"What makes the win even more important to me is that I done it with my sister Rebekah as part of the team.

"Although we are all members of Alloa East End, we haven't played that long together as a four which means the odds were against us, but I think a mixture of excitement and determination helped us through."