CRICKET –
Lisarow Ourimbah and Narara Wyoming Cricket Clubs have fought between each other for both the Male and Female Youth League Titles, with Lisarow winning the former and Narara the latter.
Both teams were together in competition against the wet weather, with the youth women pulling together to undertake a match reduced to an 18 over innings and the youth men moving to a synthetic field for a 20 over match on day two after day one was washed out.
In the end, the Lisarow Ourimbah magpies won the Male Youth League Title by a 54 run margin, whereas the Narara Wyoming Lions came back to win the Female Youth Title by 32 runs.
In the youth men’s, the Magpies initial 6 / 119 proved too large a run count for their opponents to overcome.
The opening partnership between Riley Shearman and Daniel Thompson took an early hit when Shearman was bowled by Levi Bailey after only three runs.
However, Thompson continued on through a string of low scoring partners to end up posting 52 runs off 42 bowls, eventually bowled by Ryan Cox.
Cameron Wehrle went on to post 19 runs not out until all 20 overs were complete.
In response, the Lions also got off to a slow start with Cox being caught for a duck by Lachlan Sheddon on his fourth attempt to get his tally underway, coming from captain Tyler Searle’s bowl.
From here, the Lions found it difficult to get into second gear, with two more ducks being handed to them and the highest score going to Panashe Mudavose with 13 runs off 12 balls.
On the second to last ball, Searle took his fifth and final wicket for 10 runs from 3.5 overs, ending the Lions’ innings at 65 runs.
For the Magpies, this is the second year running they have won the Male Youth League Title, with Daniel Thompson being awarded Man of the Match largely due to his high run count that made up almost the entire score difference between the two sides.
For Thompson, along with captain Searle, Shearman, Sheddon, Tom Noble and Piper Hooke, the days of juniors cricket are over, with the seniors now beckoning.
“It was a great way to end our junior cricketing career journey and now I’m looking forward to spending the next phase of that journey with them,” commented Searle.
“Thanks to our coach, Darren Bates, who has made a great effort all year, our team has achieved our full potential.
“He set up a Magpie Academy for us over the preseason which everyone in this team was a part of and I think it paid off at the end of the day.”
Meanwhile in the Female Youth Final, the Lions batted first and underwent a similar bad start, losing Chelsea Owen for a duck due to Tina Cotton’s catch from Sophie Burkinshaw’s bowl on the fourth ball.
The team’s consistency came only when AlexBobbi Smith and Ashley Owen took to the bat one after the other due to two wickets being taken by Molly Kidd on two consecutive bowls, with the aid of two catches, first by Anouk van’t Wel then Cotton.
Smith and Owen each made up 17 runs off 30 bowls faced, providing the team with much needed runs.
The Magpies also had an early shake to their batting innings when Keira White bowled out Lacey Burton for two runs, but then a partnership between Kidd and Annalise Brewster pushed the team’s run score up to 36.
From here, wicked bowling from the Lions took wicket after wicket, posting three ducks in total.
Without finding any more success with the bat, the Magpies reached a top score of 50 and were bowled out in the 15th over.
This is the first time Narara Wyoming have won the Female Youth League Title.
With success being found for these two Northern Central Coast clubs, Lisarow Ourimbah in particular will hope this will continue in the final of the 2nd Grade Opens Grand Final where they play against The Entrance.
The Entrance will also seek to carve out their dominance in the 1st Grade Opens Grand Final where they play Terrigal Matcham.
These two games will be played at Central Coast Regional Sporting Complex over March 27-28.
Source:
CCCA Scoring.