Page 34 - West Pennant Hills Cherrybrook Cricket Club Yearbook 2016-17

Some goals that were achieved this season by players were to occupy the crease longer each week and the runs followed, to create pressure on the batter by standing up to the stumps, and the stumpings came thick and fast. Some players came to the bowling crease with little confidence, but then walked away far more confident after taking a haul of several wickets. A significant improvement is now having a slips cordon with our bowlers bowling to a plan, building pressure and generating chances.
A special thank-you to Sarah for managing the team and to all parents who have umpired, helped setup and supported the team. Finally to Graham for creating the opportunity for all our daughters to enjoy what is a great sport.
Mal Hall (Coach)
2016/17 will be remembered for so many great reasons.
Jess Meikle and Danielle Chivers were asked to attend a Press release session at the SCG where Cricket Australia announced funding for girls cricket and Club shirts were to the fore on the news that night.
Apart from all the winners of awards special mention goes to Jess Phillips who took an amazing 10 catches and 6 stumpings and Ragini Sen took 4 wickets in one innings for the Red team. I would also like to thank the girls who moved teams from time to time through the season to help when other teams were short, especially Amy Harkin who stepped up to the Blue team on at least 3 occasions and even got a broken bat for her helping out.
We managed to enter an Association team in the Margaret Pedon Under 15 Representative competition and many congratulations to Abigail Pereira, Amy Hale, Amy Harkin, Danielle Chivers, Jyothi Krithivasan, Isabella McEwan, Khushi Arora, Lauren Kua, and Lily Campbell who set a new record of 9 girls from our Club to play in the one Representative team. While results did not go their way they did really well and we now have a toe hold in Representative cricket in the Association. Hopefully we can get at least a similar number of girls playing Representative cricket next season.
In addition Amy Hale represented Sydney West and Lauren Kua represented Sydney North in the PSSA tournament with Lauren playing in the winning team beating Amy’s team in the final.
Our season concluded with a wonderful Presentation night. We made a last minute change to the venue due to the flooded James Henty Oval and were so grateful we could use the hall at Pacific Hills School at such short notice. Lauren Smith from the Lend Lease Breakers, Sydney Sixers and Shooting Stars kindly accepted my invitation to attend and her presence was very much appreciated. I was also very grateful for the support on the night from fellow members of the Club Executive in Barry, Andrew, Ross and Julian.
Lauren Kua won the Lisa Sthalekar Trophy this year for her outstanding season with bat and ball with Club, Association and also for Sydney North while Christina Philip was awarded the Arthur Souter Award and became the first young lady to get this in recognition of playing every season from Kanga through to the end of Juniors. Danielle Chivers also picked up a 5 wicket award which was the first time any WPHCCC girl had taken 5 wickets in an innings since 2000.
Sadly we have reached the last season in junior cricket for Jae and Christina. They have been true stalwarts of the girls section at WPHCCC. Both of these young ladies have grown as people since I first met them both a few years ago, setting very high standards both in cricketing terms and also in leadership roles encouraging younger team mates at every opportunity. They are both past winners of the Lisa Sthalekar Trophy and both represent everything that is good about WPHCCC. We will miss them greatly on and off the cricket pitch although Christina has already offered to come back and coach the younger girls which is wonderful. Hopefully we can find ways of keeping them both involved with the Club for many years to come.
Huge congratulations to Michelle Boccalatte who was the inaugural winner of the Volunteer of the Year for Girls Cricket. Michelle and her daughter Jae joined the Club in 2011 and ever since then they have travelled from Mt Colah every week to train and play, probably clocking up more kilometres than anyone else at the Club and certainly in the Girls section. In addition she acted as Team Manager and scored almost every ball of every season and is an incredibly worthy winner of this award and she leaves a huge gap in our team of Volunteers moving forwards.
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