De La Salle College crowned champions

Originally scheduled for Friday 9 December, heavy rain on Thursday morning left the ground unplayable. Both schools committed their players to Monday, resulting in a close final that see-sawed in favour of both teams throughout the match.
Prior to the final, De La Salle went through their three group matches undefeated, including a win over St Josephs, before winning their semi-final against The Peninsula School.

St Joseph’s finished second in their pool due to their loss to De La Salle in round two, leaving them with a tough semi-final match up against the undefeated Melbourne Grammar. Batting first and posting 92, they bowled Melbourne out for just 76 in 16.2 overs.

The final saw De La Salle win the toss and elected to bat for the 5th time in a row in the tournament. However things didn’t go to plan early as they lost one opener with the first ball of the innings and four wickets in total during the first three overs. Smart batting coupled with some undisciplined bowling through the middles overs saw De La Salle post their highest score of the tournament of 9/141.

Skipper Ben Paine led the way, eventually being run out for 52 on the last delivery of the innings – the same delivery that he brought up his half century. Tom Humphries did all the damage with the ball early, taking three wickets in his first two overs and finished with 3/20.

St Joseph’s openers got the run chase off to an excellent start, piling on 60 before the fall of the first wicket. Unfortunately, from that point onwards the consistent loss of wickets stalled the scoring for St Joseph’s and they were never able to reel the run rate back in.

Some crafty batting in the final three overs led to the possibility of the ultimate fairy tale story, where they needed just six off the last ball to win the Grand Final. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, with the delivery hitting the stumps to seal the victory for De La Salle. St Joseph’s finished their 20 overs on 7/136 with Zac Grundman the best of the bowlers with 3/26.

Congratulations to all eight schools that took part in the tournament and to De La Salle on being the champions in 2016.