Grubbers hold on for back-to-back premierships

OCEAN Grove Cricket Club are again at the top of Barwon’s local cricket mountain for a second year in a row following its narrow five-run win over East Belmont in a thriller at Herne Hill Reserve on Sunday.

The clash to decide the Barwon Women Cricket Competition’s (BWCC) premiers for 2021/22 was everything a final could hope to provide with solid numbers being put up by both teams and an exciting finish right until the last ball.

Ocean Grove were on the front foot early putting up a solid 111-run total in the full 20 overs led by heavy-hitters Mandy Adams (50) and opener Tesarna Lapham (25).

Kristen Long of East Belmont did her best to slow down the Grubbers’ batting knocking over a pair of wickets in her four overs of work allowing just 19 runs in the process.

Ocean Grove did its best to maximise the inning, switching sides with 111 on the board and the Lionesses ready to make an immediate impact.

Surprisingly, it was Ocean Grove that made an almost immediate impact running out East Belmont opener Kelly Williams with just nine runs on the board.

Her partner in crime Chrissy Walker fell two runs later to make it 2/11 to give the responsibility to the captain Rebecca Farey and fourth batter Mikaela Monahan.

The two put the pressure on with 73 runs combined between them and started to make the Grubbers very nervous.

Farey eventually fell at 34 and Monahan did the same at 39 with East Belmont’s total sitting at 6/96.

The tail end of the Lioness’s batting order did their best to make up the difference, however, fell just five runs short with a total of 7/106 at the conclusion of the 20th over.

An elated Ocean Grove captain in Jacqueline Johnston was “absolutely relieved” to pull away with the win.
“We’re on a buzz, it was just wonderful feeling,” Johnston said.

“Obviously, last season we finished on top, and we could just bask in the win, but this time we had a very back and forth game, so to come out on top was just exhilarating.

“We know what we’re capable of, so we just needed to make sure we were nice and relaxed and to stick with what we do well.

“As a result, we managed to put up a good score and it was good enough to get over the line.”