Ruby Hill of Spalding Indoor Bowls Club tastes success at the at the International Indoor Bowls Council event at County Antrim

Spalding Indoor Bowls Club’s Ruby Hill has tasted World Championship glory while representing her country.

Hill won the Under 25 Mixed Pairs title when on England duty at the International Indoor Bowls Council event at County Antrim Indoor Bowls Club.

After winning the Ladies National Under 25 singles title last season, Hill claimed a second successive victory after joining forces with Harry Goodwin from Swale.

The pair started the week-long event with a tough game against Australian duo, Brianna Smith and Nick Cahill.

Hill and Goodwin found the Australians in top form and lost in straight sets (3-9, 1-11).

They bounced back well though with a win against Ellie Dixon from Norfolk Island and Angel Gomez from USA (6-9, 17-1, 1-0).

The duo continued to play well as they won their next two group games in straight sets, the first being against Larissa Rubin from Switzerland and Daniel Spratt from Ireland (8-2, 7-6) before showing their class against the Hungarian pairing of Sarolta Schrank and Mate Dobos (19-1, 18-0).

In their final group game, Hill and Goodwin beat Catherine Snell and Ben Harvey from Guernsey (9-1, 7-3) which secured second spot in the group and a place in the knock-out stages.

As they finished second in the group, Hill and Goodwin had to take part a play-off against a Guernsey pairing who finished third.

Fortunately, another straight sets victory followed (12-2, 5-4) to book their place in the semi-final against the other group winners, Kara Lees and Bradley Buchan from Scotland.

After winning the first set 10-5, Hill and Goodwin went into the last end of the second set 5-6 behind but scoring a single meant that they drew the set and won the match 1.5-0.5.

Awaiting them in the final were the Australian pair of Smith and Cahill who beat Shauna O’Neill and Adam Rankin from Ireland in their semi-final.

After being beaten by the Aussies in the group stages, Hill and Goodwin were no doubt out for revenge but Smith and Cahill started the better of the two teams to win the first set 14-1.

Hill and Goodwin fought back well to win the second set 12-3 to create a tense one-end tie break to decide the title.

Hill and Goodwin held their nerve to win the tiebreak and the title of World Under 25 Mixed Pairs champions.

The scorecard – showing that Hill and Goodwin won, 1-14, 12-3, 1-0 – may suggest that the sets were ludicrously one-sided, but, in reality, there was some superlative play in both sets, followed by a tense and highly competitive tie-break in which the England duo just had the edge.

Hill had been beaten in the semi-finals of the singles event after losing to Yu Yee Sin from Hong Kong.

The Spalding bowler had finished runner-up in her singles group.