Winners are Grinners
On Sunday 4th December, the Ferntree Gully & District Cricket Association under 14 team won section 8 of the Victorian Country Cricket League (VCCL) tournament that has been in action over the past month.
Traditionally, the Ferntree Gully, Mornington Peninsula and West Gippsland Cricket Associations use the tournament to finalise their teams for the Victorian Metropolitan Cricket Union which is played across Melbourne over a two-week carnival in January.
This year the FTGDCA U14 successfully won the tournament winning all three games. There were a number of very good performances from the 17 players that took part in the games that shows that our under 14 squads have good depth.
FTGDCA Executive Member Adrian Brown stated “This year with the assistance of Michael Beyer and Dean Arundell we commenced the rigorous task of selecting the best U14 players in the competition to represent our association back in July. I have no doubt that this lead to the success as well as our focus on junior pathways over the past couple of years. We encourage and teach young people in the local community to participate in Cricket in order to promote fitness and an active lifestyle. We invest over $20,000 per year in ensuring that the best junior and senior cricketers have a mapped pathway to the best opportunity of playing cricket at the highest level”.
This tournament for our U12s/14s/16s and 18s has allowed the FTGDCA selectors to finalised a 7 team squad of 90 boys and girls to embark on the Victorian Metropolitan Cricket Union (VMCU) carnival held over two weeks in January.
Mr Brown added, “The VMCU is made up of around 16 different associations battling it out for bragging rights as the best association in Melbourne and surrounding country areas. These teams represent over 25,000 junior cricketers. We are setting ourselves up to be competitive in all age groups if not win the carnival’.
We would like to congratulate the FTGDCA on their VCCL achievements in the under 14s and wish them whole association well for the VMCU carnival in January.
VCCL FTGDCA Results
Game 1
FTGDCA V West Gippsland won on forfeit.
Game 2
40 over game
FTGDCA 5 for 138 defeated Yarra Valley 3 for 109
Batting
D Goldberg 26 ,T Sonsie 20 ret, M Beyer 17, O Stainthorpe 17, J Morton 15 ret, J Simpson 13 ret, T Harkin 12
Bowling
L Mckinnon 7 overs 1 for 12, L Tibbals 6 overs 1 for 15
Game 3
40 over game
FTGDCA 7 for 170 defeated Mornington Peninsula 8 for 118
Batting
T Sonsie 34, B Marget 32, J McMeekan 24 ret, L Goodger 21
Bowling
L Goodger 6 overs 3 for 14, B Harrison 5 overs 2 for 19,
