Ocean Grove and St Josephs fight for grand final place

WITH the regular home and away season of the inaugural GCA women’s competition complete, teams will now prepare for finals cricket.

The finals will involve most teams, with seventh playing eight, fifth playing sixth, and so on. But the stakes are highest for the match between the two table-toppers, as the winners will then go on to play the winner of the Women’s T/20 North division the following week.

GCA board member and women’s cricket portfolio chair Lisa Armstrong-Rowe said the first season of the women’s competition had eclipsed expectations.

“We thought, ‘wouldn’t it be great, wouldn’t we be lucky if we got five or six or eight teams. That’d be amazing.’ We’ve got 17. We’ve got teams from clubs that haven’t even got a girl’s program. We’ve got clubs putting in two teams.

“So to see the participation, to see camaraderie, to see the desire, and even the number of people turning up to watch the game has been amazing.”

Armstrong-Rowe said it also provided a pathway for junior players that had previously been lacking.

“It’s been an amazing opportunity as well for our Stage Three girls (the highest stage of female junior cricket) across the region to be able to see that there is a pathway for them into women’s cricket.”

The top two sides in the Women’s T/20 South are Ocean Grove and St Josephs.

Ocean Grove will be the favourites, not only having gone through the season unbeaten, but also having defeated St Josephs handily in the most recent round of matches.

This was largely thanks to an 89-run opening partnership between Jacqueline Johnston and Alana Kot, who have averaged 183 and 68.50 throughout the season respectively.

The winner of the game will play either Irrewarra or Manifold Heights from the Women’s T20 North division in the grand final.