The 5-Man All Star Tournament is an annual Southwest Bowls Division tournament for men. Southwest Lawn Bowls Clubs enter a team of five of their strong players. This year, nine Southwest Clubs sent their best players to compete, and Coronado Lawn Bowling Club (CLBC) not only won the tournament, but won it undefeated, which is an unusual feat.
The CLBC team included Team Captain Bill Brault, who has been a member of the U.S. Team, engaged in multiple international competitions and even won the Champion of Champions in New Zealand a few years ago. Harold Krasner grew up in South Africa where he and his father won several huge regional and country-wide championships. John Lee was the bowler with the fewest years’ bowling experience, having started lawn bowling during the pandemic because his wife Barbara Lee had become a lawn bowling enthusiast, but he has since won and placed in many Southwest Bowls tournaments over his three years of play. Javier Gomez, a graduate of Coronado High School (CHS) and father of three, has been bowling since 2011, is a certified Bowls USA coach and has been in the winning circle of many Southwest Tournaments for over 12 years. And finally, 17-year-old CHS student Angel Gomez who has been bowling with the CLBC since he was 7 years old and will soon be the first junior bowler from the United States to compete in an international competition took on the one singles match for the team and won it handily.
In the aftermath of the big win, Team Captain Bill Brault said, “This was a team effort and if I’m going to name an MVP it would be Angel. He was absolutely remarkable in the two games of triples he played. Because we had a bye in the second round of pairs Harold and John had to play the triples. Therefore, only one of us could play with them. So Javier and I sat while Angel went out and put incredible pressure on their opponent, they never had a chance.”
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Submitted by Coronado Lawn Bowling Club
