It was a big week on the cricket calendar as two local representative teams ventured across the border to compete at Country Week, carrying the hopes of their clubs and communities into a highly competitive regional showcase.\u2029<\/p>\n
The Mount Gambier and Districts Cricket Association sent over Under 17 and an Under 15 teams to compete in the Western Waves Region 2 Country Week.\u2029<\/p>\n
The two sides took on other Western Victorian regions including Warrnambool, Hamilton, Portland and Horsham.\u2029<\/p>\n
Both teams had competitive weeks with the Under 15 side finishing undefeated, while the Under 17s finished second with three wins and one defeat.\u2029<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, due to the hot weather in Victoria, the Under 15s were unable to play a grand final but given they finished first on the ladder they were named champions.\u2029<\/p>\n
The side was by far the best in the tournament as every match was a convincing win.\u2029<\/p>\n
Penola\u2019s Will Harris was named player of the carnival along with being the leading run scorer.\u2029<\/p>\n
Under 15 coach Craig Hicks thought the side battled hard against a tough schedule and tough weather conditions.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was pretty difficult conditions with it being nearly 40 degrees everyday,\u201d he said.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cThey were great, we had a really hard draw because we won the competition the last two years, but the boys went through undefeated which was awesome, so that\u2019s three years in a row now.\u201d\u2029<\/p>\n
Heading into the tournament, Hicks was unsure how the side would however they performed well in the competition.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cI was pleasantly surprised, I was probably a bit unsure with how we would go this time round but at least half of the team exceeded my expectations,\u201d he said.\u2029<\/p>\n
Hicks said it was disappointing not playing a grand final but overall he believed his side was the best.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was a bit of a let-down not playing the grand final, but it still does not take away the fact that we were the best team by a mile,\u201d he said.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cSo I\u2019m pretty confident our lads would have done very well in the grand final.\u201d\u2029<\/p>\n
Across the week Hicks thought several players performed well.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cCooper Howard from South was really good with the bat, he\u2019s a bottom-ager and was someone who blew me away with how good he is,\u201d Hicks said.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cArchie Sims from South bowled really well and Harvey Virtanen from Mil Lel had some really nice innings.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cPat Sigley from South bowled unbelievably well, he was the only boy we had with real pace and he was our leading bowler for the week by a mile, he was excellent.\u201d\u2029<\/p>\n
In the Under 17 competition, the Mount Gambier side met the undefeated Warrnambool Moyne Gold in the grand final with the Victorian side finishing as the clear top team.\u2029<\/p>\n
In the grand final Warrnambool batted first and put together a strong innings.\u2029<\/p>\n
Warrnambool\u2019s Joshua Campbell was the difference maker with the bat, putting 83 runs on the board and helping his side to a score of 243.\u2029<\/p>\n
Harry Hicks had a solid performance with the ball, claiming three wickets.\u2029<\/p>\n
With a big chase in front of them, Mount Gambier struggled to get going early on with Kobi Maxwell making one along with Tayte Virtanen scoring seven.\u2029<\/p>\n
Hicks helped build some momentum as he made 29 runs while a 42 run innings from Ryder Lindner was much needed from the side.\u2029<\/p>\n
Jaggar Geary finished as the side\u2019s leading scorer, making 49.\u2029<\/p>\n
Despite a solid batting effort, the side failed to chase down the large total as they finished with 211 runs after 50 overs.\u2029<\/p>\n
Under 17 coach Shane Grigg said he was pleased with the performance from the side across the week.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cI was very happy with the performance for the week, to me it was a very even performance, it was not left up to a few players, it was the whole group who contributed to the whole week,\u201d he said.\u2029<\/p>\n
Grigg knew the side would be in with a chance across the week as it was full of talented players.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cI sort of knew it would be a very competitive group, there were a lot of talented kids from the league, but it was very hard cricket throughout the whole week,\u201d he said.\u2029<\/p>\n
Despite not winning the grand final, Grigg was still proud of the achievement in making the big dance.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cIt was still a great achievement to make it, none of the games were easy, we got tested on day one with a close victory,\u201d he said.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cPretty much every other game throughout the week we had to fight quite hard to get our wins to put us in position to make the grand final.\u2029<\/p>\n
\u201cI still think it was a great week and a great opportunity for the boys to play in a week like that.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"It was a big week on the cricket calendar as two local representative teams ventured across the border…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412562,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[564],"tags":[64,63,188724,188725,4026,5214,740,24706,18597,188726,188727,188728,188729,16118,188730,473,188731,188732,188733,122145,113178,52455,188734,474,188735,122147,17595,74473,188736,588,85,23287,188737,4893,188738,188739],"class_list":["post-412561","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cricket","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-barber-shield","tag-barber-shielf","tag-bulldogs","tag-community","tag-cricket","tag-demons","tag-eagles","tag-east-gambier","tag-frew-park","tag-gambier-centrals","tag-glencoe","tag-hawks","tag-kongorong","tag-limestone-coast","tag-malseed-park","tag-marist-park","tag-mil-lel","tag-millicent","tag-mount-burr","tag-mozzies","tag-murphies","tag-naracoorte","tag-north-sportmans","tag-penola","tag-pic","tag-roos","tag-south-gambier","tag-sport","tag-sports","tag-t20","tag-tarpeena","tag-tiger","tag-west-gambier","tag-yahl"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412561","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412561"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412561\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412562"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412561"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412561"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412561"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}