Finalists decided for mighty finish
Grampians Cricket Association A Grade finalists will play a best-of-three final series during the three days of the Labor Day long weekend.
In A Grade it will be Buangor-tatyoon against Swifts-great Western and in B Grade Swiftsgreat Western against St Andrews in a usual limited-over contest.
A Grade matches will be at the top-finishing team’s home ground and then the lower team’s ground and then back to the top team’s ground.
This means A Grade games will be at Tatyoon, Central Park in Stawell and then back to Tatyoon.
For B Grade it will be one match at Central Park on the Saturday.
A Grade semi-finals last weekend was unfortunate for Halls Gap with heavy rain leading to the Tatyoon pitch being unplayable.
Officials declared the match a draw, meaning the Buangor-tatyoon Hawks, as the higherranked team, advance to the grand final.
In the other semi-final, Swifts-great Western had a comfortable win over Youth Club despite Nic Baird scoring 83 out of team’s 143.
Batting first, the Clubbers with only Matt Healy, 25, supporting Baird were dismissed in the 40th over, with Rick Peters, 4-3, and Will Clough, 3-17, the main wicket-takers.
The Combine lost only four wickets in passing the score in the 34th over.
Main scorers for the Combine were Tom Eckel, 75 not out and Sam Cocks, 24.
B Grade resulted in the Combine scoring a convincing winner over Rhymney-moyston and St Andrews running down a Navarre score to qualify for the final.
This weekend in A Grade, Buangor-tatyoon will start favorite to break the Combine’s run of four flags in a row.
The Hawks have been the dominant team all season, losing only to Pomonal and the Combine in T20 competition. The Hawks strength has been their middle-order batsmen of Jacob Bates, Riley Wood and the Cronin brothers along with bowlers Callum Baker, Zander Mcdougal and spinner James Phillips.
The Combine, on the other hand, has looked to the top order of Sam Cocks, Tom and Jessie Eckel for the bulk of their runs and have relied on bowlers Will Clough, Matt Heffer and all-rounders Tom Eckel, Tom Fitzgerald and Rick Peters to win games. How they match up will determine the result. Most would anticipate the final will be determined by a 2-1 victory.
The B grade final will see Swifts-great Western start favorite against the Saints.
The Combine’s last two games have seen their bowlers restrict the opposition to below 100 scores and win fairly comfortably. The Saints have also had comfortable wins.
The Combine has some old hands who know how to play on turf.
The association had its presentations on Saturday night with Youth Club’s Baird winning his fourth Greg Goldsmith award as the competition’s outstanding player.
He polled 13 votes to finish ahead of the Combine’s Tom Eckel and the Hawks’ Jacob Bates, both on 12. This week: Grand finals, A Grade, Buangor-tatyoon v Swifts-great Western on March 12, 13 and 14; B Grade, Swifts-great Western v Set Andrews at Central Park, Stawell. Last week: Semi-finals, A Grade, Swifts-great Western 4-145 (T. Eckel 75no) d Youth Club 143 (N. Baird 83, M. Healy 25; R. Peters 4-3, W. Clough 3-17), Buangor-tatyoon drew with Halls Gap. B Grade, St Andrews 3-152 (N. Oliver 50, R. Taylor 33no, J. Menzies 33no; C. Wilkinson 3-38) d Navarre 7-146 (T. Hannett 85no), Swifts-great Western 1-78 (T. Nicholson 40no) d Rhymney-moyston 76 (A. Graveson 3-28).