By Catherine Ferraro
KILMORE First XI kicked off its 2011/2012 season in the Seymour District Cricket Association with a win over Broadford on Saturday.
The Blues won the toss and elected to bat, and despite a slow start from the top order, soon hit their stride through Xavier Youngman with 48 and Rod McLeod 38.
The duo shared a 50-run partnership before Youngman’s wicket had the Blues at 4/88.
Marcus Davern was lost to an lbw decision for five runs before captain Travis Blackwell came in to steady the ship, joining McLeod in a partnership for 69 to help steer the Blues to be 8/189 cc after 45 overs.
“Xavier and Rod really set our innings up. They gave us a pretty good start and when we got a few wickets early in the field, we gained the momentum,” captain Travis Blackwell said.
“It was a great all round effort on the day with everyone contributing to the win.
“It was also great to see young Tom O’Donnell take three wickets in his first A-grade game. He is a really good kid and will take a lot from the experience of playing senior cricket,” Blackwell said.
O’Donnell snared 3/37 off seven overs and alongside McLeod, who took 3/7 off five did the majority of the damage for the Blues.
Blackwell hopes to take advantage of the young talent at Kilmore and introduce these skills to the senior side.
“By exposing them to senior cricket as early as possible you improve their game and give them confidence in senior competition.
“We will definitely bring the kids in to play and give them that exposure that is so important to developing their game,” Blackwell said.
Broadford’s batting line-up made sporadic stands, but found it hard to maintain consistency, with Justin Nicholas and Mitch Collier the highest scorers with 22 and 19 respectively for the total of 127.
Collier backed up his effort with the bat, with figures of 2/24 with the ball. Mark Moran also proved valuable for the Red and Blacks with 2/9.
Kilmore will host Eastern Hill next week, while Broadford host Avenel.
In other A-grade matches, Alexandra held off a determined Eastern Hill to win by a run in their match at Kings Park.
Alexandra won the toss and made 9/165.
In reply, Eastern Hill struggled early before a 57 run partnership between Michael Brown with 38 runs and Dean Fulco with 29 had the side chasing victory.
However, Eastern Hill fell at the last hurdle with the side unable to post a winning score before the 45 overs had been played.
Seymour defeated Nagambie by five runs, with D. Bergowicz top scoring with 75 for Seymour and B. Boddington taking 4/23 for Nagambie. Final scores saw Seymour 6/181 cc defeat Nagambie 7/176cc.
Avenel made short work of Tallarook in their eight wicket win.
Avenel 2/115 (M. Donovan 43 no, W. Wheeler 28) defeated Tallarook 110 (T. Parker 44, J. Smith 4/9).
B-grade
Broadford took honours in B-grade with a one run win over Kilmore.
Broadford made 8/177 in reply to Kilmore’s 7/176 cc with Kyle Redenbach the best for the Red and Blacks with 58.
Jake Martin provided a great all round effort, making 26 runs and taking 3/38 with the ball.
Top scorers from Kilmore were Tom McMillan 28 and Benjamin Dawson 26.
C-grade
Kilmore 6/149 defeated Flowerdale 8/147 and Puckapunyal 7/150 defeated Broadford 5/149 cc.
Broadford’s Braden Hickey 46 and Alwin Neilson 40 not out, were top scorers, while Adem Hanci 2/16 and Pete Ingham 2/24 were the best with the ball.
Under 14s
Nagambie took the points against Kilmore in another close match.
Nagambie 7/80 (D. Comi 30, M. Martin 23, j. Buttler 3/15) defeated Kilmore 4/79 ( J. Buttler 29, N. Simons 23, M. Lancaster 1/6.
