Easts and Hillgrove will once again do battle in Armidale Cricket’s two-day final after both teams snagged victories in their semi-finals on the weekend.
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The current champions of the two-day format went head-to-head with one-day runners-up, City, in a game which Hillgrove captain Matt Schaefer described as “one of the better games of cricket I have been involved in over my whole career”.
Batting first, City’s Josh Martin and Michael Allen stepped up to the crease at 2-12. The pair combined to not lose another wicket until 101 runs were on the board.
When Allen left on 22, captain Kyle Taylor came in to add 50 while Martin finished with a match-high 83.
Hillgrove bowler Max Laurie was the main destroyer with a seven wicket-haul, including the key scalps of Allen, Martin and Taylor, as City finished with 173 on the board.
In reply, Hillgrove managed 157 with Will Archer the top run-scorer (43), giving City the upper hand heading into the second day.
The next day the reigning premiers turned their fortunes around with a tidy bowling performance to finish City off for 111 before chasing down the required 128 runs to land the grand final spot.
“City played really well on the Saturday, Josh Martin batted tremendously, he hit the ball clean and backed himself,” Schaefer said.
“I thought they batted pretty well, their good bats got their runs as we expected them to.
“We really turned up on Sunday, we got there at the start of the game and spoke about wanting to play cricket all day. We take a lot of positives out of it. We played a full game of cricket, it was a tough game but a great game to be involved in.
“I think our confidence is pretty high after being able to come back like that.”
Across town, Easts only had to bat once as their bowlers again dominated in their clash with Ex-Services.
Captain Sam Uphill led the charge for his side as he finished with 3-3 from 10 overs.
Jackson Gwynne (1-3), Todd Francis (3-30) and Matt Jackson (2-32) combined with Uphill to dismiss Servies for a patient 75 run-total.
With the bat, Easts’ Clarrie Moran was the standout, smashing 59 runs – including nine fours – in his side’s total of 154.
Uphill and Tyson Burey shared the bowling duties in Servies’ second innings, which lasted 13.2 overs as they were bowled out for 32.
“Nice momentum to take into a final. We bowled really well again, bowled a lot of dot balls, built a lot of pressure and there wasn't many runs between wickets so I think we did pretty well there,” Uphill said.