South West finish second to The New Coasters at Under 19 Female Country Championships

For those of you who hadn’t been following (and for those of you that were!) our representative season opened this week, with the McDonalds Under 19 Female Country Championships played at Woolgoolga, on the sunny north coast.

As many of you would know, these championships are a 4-team carnival, with Zones combining to form a team. We combine with Riverina Zone as South West.

The South West girls started their campaign with a 50 over match at High Street Playing Fields against reigning title holders, The New Coasters.

The New Coasters batted first and were dismissed for 222 in 45 overs. In reply our ladies ran down the target for the loss of only 3 wickets, with Charlotte Shoemark unbeaten on 95. The game however was not without it's more interesting moments, with kangaroos enjoying the days play as spectators, as well as play being suspended for 15 minutes when a large brown snake decided his pathway was from deep mid wicket through to deep cover. Thankfully the calm hand of the umpire carefully escorted the interloper on its journey to see the game continue.

Day two we played two T20 matches, one against Southern NSW and the other against The New Coasters. Both of our matches today were played at the new Wiigula Sports Complex, meaning we missed out on the local spectators at High Street, which included kangaroos and a carpet python!

In our first match, Holly Reed made an unbeaten 60 to help us pass Southern NSW’s 8/137 for the loss of 5 wickets.

South West 5/141 (Holly Reed 60no, Maddy Spence 16) defeated Southern NSW 8/137 (Adelina Grant 2-19, Mia Grace Elliott 2-22, Maddy Spence 2-25)

For our second match, we werren’t able to run down The New Coasters total of 122, falling 22 runs short. Holly Reed again top scored with 20 for us.

New Coasters 7/122 (Callee Black 1-12) defeated South West 8/100 (Holly Reed 20, Georgia Allan 17no Callee Black 16, Charlotte Shoemark 15)

Day three was back to a 50 over match. We fielded first, restricting Northern Stars to 223 from their 50 overs. Wickets were shared among our bowlers, with Charlotte Shoemark, Callee Black, Simran Dhatt and Phoebe Johnston all picking up multiple wickets. On the back of an unbeaten 97 from Charlotte Shoemark, we chased down the required runs with 4 wickets in hand and just under 13 overs to spare.

The win put us on top of the ladder and into the final against The New Coasters who snuck in courtesy of a bonus point from their win over Southern NSW.

Whilst we were at Wiigulga again for this match, a red bellied black snake was making an appearance over at High Street!

The final day saw the final played between South West and The New Coasters in a rematch of last season’s final. Unfortunately we ended up on the wrong side of the scoreboard again, with The New Coasters score of 299 too good for us on the day, although Callee Black’s 5-for was certainly a highlight.

New Coasters 299 (Callee Black 5-40, Simran Dhatt 3-30, Holly Reed 2-46) defeated South West 177 (Lucy Mellis 36, Phoebe Johnston 31)