Nine girls from Year 10 and 12 travelled to Queenswood for the annual GDST Rounders Tournament on Wednesday 27thJune. After a long bus journey, the sun was shining and a great day of rounders lay ahead. The first match was against Birkenhead. A close match but due to some brilliant fielding from Annabelle and strong batting from Katie we won 6.5-5.5. As the morning progressed it was very obvious that our pool was extremely hard with many teams drawing or wining by half a rounder. After all the pool matches, it came down to points and rounders scored. Just sliding out of the top 4 we then had a BYE into the Plate semi-finals.
In the Semis, we faced Stratham and Clapham; Charlie went into ‘destroy’ mode and delivered absolutely outstanding bowling. They only managed to reach 4 rounders; the win was within our reach. Katie G batted with flair, Lou’s left hand resulted in 2 rounders, Holly hit consistently scoring ½’s and Maisie’s reliability ensured we gained more rounders to our total. We beat them 6.5-4.
The final; we faced Nottingham again, a team that we drew with earlier in the day. Charlie as captain won the toss meaning we were batting second. Howell’s fielded with supreme dominance, Nia’s throws into 2nd were spot on. Maisie’s backstopping was a class above. Pascha played deep 2nd managing to cover post and long balls – she was outstanding.
Howell’s came into bat; only 3.5 rounders to beat. Ball one – Katie, rounder scored. Ball 2 ‘no ball’ Charlie hit a monster shot and scored another rounder. Ball 3 ‘no ball’ Katie hit a strong ball passed 2nd and scored ½. By ball 8 Sascha had also scored, as well as Katie again we had done it! All by ball number 8 of 20. Just an outstanding effort by all. Especially being down to 8 players from the 3rd match onwards. It was an absolute pleasure to see the girls play with such determination, grit and resilience. Well done girls!