The Margaret River Hawks demonstrated they have well and truly left their woes of last season behind them when they demolished St Marys to record their fourth A-grade win of the summer in the Busselton-Margaret River cricket competition on Saturday.
After restricting St Marys to 5-147 from their 50 overs at Barnard Park, the Hawks raced to a seven-wicket win when they responded with 3-149 in just 38 overs.
The result puts Margaret River on 44 points and into third place on the ladder for the Yates Shield, behind leaders Dunsborough (58 points) and YOBS (54 points).
St Marys, who won their first three games of the season, have now lost four straight and are on 34 points, while last year’s premiers Cowaramup are fifth on 24 points.
Best players on the day for St Marys were Ed Moulton (46 not out), Jono Lloyd (25) and skipper Kurt Davis (24), while Hawks’ left-arm import Rumesh Silva again proved very hard to get away with 1-18 from his 10 overs opening the attack.
Matt Kent (1-27), Chris McLean (1-21) and Grant Garstone (0-28) all played their part by bowling economically, while Hawks’ star with the bat was Shane Joyce with a powerful unbeaten 58.
Outswing bowler Pete Grygorcewicz was the pick of the attack for Saints with 2-15 from seven overs.
The double-header of T20 games at Dunsborough saw some excellent performances, with Danny Hatton (55) and Ben Christmas (48 not out) piloting the home side to a win over YOBS in the first match.
YOBS batted first and recovered well after being 4-17 to post a competitive 8-124, with veteran Colin Harris (41 off just 25 balls) leading the way.
Dunsborough lost Josh Reagan in their opening over before Hatton and Christmas posted a 97-run stand to set Dunsborough up for victory in the 19th over.
The second T20 game saw YOBS outplay Cowaramup, the feature being Ardene Ruhode’s performance to bat through the opening 20 overs for 66 not out as YOBS compiled 6-127.
Cowaramup lacked an anchor in their reply and were restricted to 9-109.
Tait Spowart and Haig Colombera took two wickets each while Ruhode completed an excellent allround performance with three wickets.
The A-grade T20 ladder sees Dunsborough on top with 20 points from two games, followed by YOBS with 20 points from three games, then Cowaramup on 10 points, Hawks on 8 points and St Marys on -2 points.
In B-grade cricket, Dunsborough, YOBS and Vasse all recorded comfortable victories.
- Allan Miller
In B-grade cricket, Dunsborough, YOBS and Vasse all recorded comfortable victories.
B-grade results:
Dunsborough 2-104 (32 overs) (T. Begley 50no, M. Lepidi 32) d St Marys 101 (32.1 overs) (T. Campbell 31, S. Henry 3-1, J. Pes 3-21, R. Norrish 2-24) at Barnard Synthetic.
YOBS 4-255 (45 overs) (L. Wedderburn 64, J. Wain 50, M. Braid 45no, T. Payne 39, K. Coates 2-49) d Cowaramup 128 (42.1 overs) (A. Holben 49, K. Coates 20, J. Taylor 5-31, J. Trewren 2-4, M. Braid 2-36) at Cowaramup Turf.
Vasse 7-229 (45 overs) (S. Shepherd 55, C. Zabaznow 45, J. Albury 30, A. Eades 28, M. Earl 3-36, J. Stanbury 3-44) d Marg River Hawks 84 (22.2 overs) (A. Marioni 30, S. Leigh 22, B. Kearney 4-22, D. Ebert 2-4, A. Eades 2-15) at Margaret River Synthetic.