Camberwell Magpies / Wyclif 4/100 defeated Glen Iris 5/99
The Camberwell / Wyclif girls had a very hard fought win off the second last ball of the game against a tenacious Glen Iris team.
The previous two games against Glen Iris had resulted in comfortable victories for the girls but Glen Iris had caused an upset in the semi having defeated the top team Vermont / Mitcham and came into the GF having won their last 6 games.
Camberwell won the bat flip, and chose to bowl first.
In the very first over some alert wicket keeping by Frances Davis ran out Glen Iris’s best batter without facing a ball through a direct hit. Unperturbed by the set back Glen Iris proceeded to accumulate a very good score of 5/99. Olive Mackintosh picked up two wickets (including a caught and bowled) to finish with 2/9 and Amelie Chapman grabbing a wicket for just 8 runs. Katherine O’Brien bowled 2 tidy overs and Sabrina Bonollo behind the stumps took two excellent catches and featured in a run out. Amy Jackson’s last over, (and last of the innings) was the quickest of the match, only went for 2 runs, off the bat, keeping the Glen Iris score under the hundred.
Taking on what would be their 2nd largest run chase of the season, Katie Hersom and Frances Davis started the innings with some aggressive running between the wickets that enabled Camberwell to maintain the run rate at the required 5 runs an over. Enter Sabrina Bonollo, who added some hard-hitting to score 18 runs off her allotted 15 balls, which put her team ahead of the game. Some tight bowling and good field placings left Camberwell needing 20 runs to win off the last 3 overs, with the team's 2 youngest players Sarah Jackson and Isabel McBride at the crease. Two telling boundaries (both square cuts) in the 18th over from Sarah tipped the scales before she was out off the last ball. That brought Katie Hersom back to the crease, and in partnership with Isabelle took the score to level with Glen Iris with 3 balls left. Unfortunately, Isabel was out next ball bowled for an enterprising 6 off 11 balls. A quickly run bye off the next ball sealed the Grand Final win for Camberwell.
It was a fitting victory for a team that had played the second half of the season with basically 6 players (in a 9 player competition) and lost only 2 games for the whole year. A deemed forfeit (after winning a game with 5 players) being the only reason the team didn’t finish top. It was a great pleasure to see all the girls improve over the course of the season. Coach Holly Spencer and I thoroughly enjoyed coaching the girls and the bond within the team was second to none.
Congratulations to the girls on a memorable season and a terrific win.
Paul Jackson - Coach