There were a few nerves this morning when our table cricket team headed off to Carlisle College for their first competition of the year, with 15 schools attending from all over the North of Cumbria. Following on from their success last year, reaching the National Finals, they were worried about living up to their earlier achievements.
As teams arrived for some pre-match practice, there was a real buzz around the hall, and it was lovely to see students meeting up with friends they had made from different schools at earlier events.
The competition got underway promptly at 10am with the pool matches. There were 4 pools in all. Our team played three matches in their pool and secured three wins so went on to compete in a semi-final match. Here they met Cockermouth, a strong team who they have met many times in previous years. Our team held their nerve and came away with the win, 263 runs to 241 runs. This was a closer game which was won through tight fielding rather than a huge batting score.
They then went on to compete in the final for first or second place. Their opponents were RR Central Academy. This was a very competitive match. Both teams fielded superbly and kept the batting scores low, but WHS batted second, chasing Central’s score and came away with the win by a narrow margin, 255 runs to 235.
They will now go through to the County Competition in Penrith on 11th February along with RR Central and Cockermouth where they will meet three teams from the South of Cumbria.
Huge congratulations to the team – Nicky (Captain), Samuel (Vice Captain), Summer, Eve, Harry, Levi, Emily, Amy and Lewis. They played superbly throughout!
Their coach, Mrs Croucher, commented: “There were some excellent batting scores from all the students. In their second match of the day Summer scored her highest ever batting score. Their fielding skills were excellent. They worked really well together as a team to keep the fielding tight and keep their opponents scores low.”
Thank you to Carlisle College for hosting, to Karen Cook (Carlisle School Games Organiser) Hannah Paling and John Hughes (Cumbria Cricket) for running the day, to the sports leaders from Central Academy for umpiring, to all the schools who attended allowing their students to experience such a great day of inclusive sport and to the students themselves for taking part so enthusiastically, demonstrating wonderful team spirit.
