Away win for U14 rounders team

The U14 Rounders team travelled to St Edmund’s last Saturday. Two innings were played, with each team batting for 15 minutes. Zara Sproul began her captaincy by winning the toss and opting to bat first. She unfortunately was caught out, but the team carefully and tactically gained the oh-so-important half rounders. The result was that at the end of the innings we had a total of 15 rounders, averaging a rounder a minute Becca Woodhams became the first victim of ‘The Swamp’, a rather muddy and wet area just after 4th base. What a reward for scoring a rounder though!

St Edmund’s fielding had let them down so the girls knew they couldn’t let this happen to them. Clemmie Reed constantly bowled good balls, ensuring no half rounders were given away that way. The excellent combination of Georgia Hyne (backstop) and Poppy Archer (1st base) saw five of the opposition out at 1st base. The safe hands of Georgie Courtney gained another out at 2nd base and Libby Brown’s secure hands found yet another out at 4th base. The result was that St Edmund’s were all out for 3 ½ rounders after 6 minutes.

Gemma Sheils had fielded 3rd deep and had batted excellently during the first innings and she was a most gracious sportswoman when she stepped aside to allow Roseanna Petrovic into the batting line-up and to take over the responsibility of 4th base. Unfortunately, Roseanna was out fairly early on even with her resolutely determined sprinting. The whole team was out after 10 minutes for 8 rounders. St Edmund’s fielding had improved and we had taken our eye slightly off the game, taking the unnecessary risks which we had not done in the first innings. The result was that St Edmund’s needed 20 rounders to beat us though!

Eloise Samuelson moved from 3rd to 2nd post, safely stumping one girl out and covering the deep field behind her post. There were some big hits from the St Edmund’s girls and Becca Woodhams made a superb deep catch. Three out at 1st and another at 3rd witnessed St Edmund’s all-out for 6 ½ rounders. As with the batting, we had taken our finger off a the pulse a little bit with the fielding too. Not enough, however, to lose the match, and we walked away with a 23 – 10 win.

It was a very good humoured match, with excellent play by all. Georgie and Eloise also fell foul of ‘The Swamp’ which meant a collection of soggy and muddy pupils on the coach on the way back. Very well done to all.