Intermediate girls book NZ Top 6 berth

Eve Simmonds on attack in her unbeaten innings for Tauranga Intermediate on Friday. Photo/Andrew Warner

Tauranga Intermediate will represent Northern Districts for the second consecutive year at the national girls' Top 6 Twenty20 championships in Christchurch in November.

Yesterday Tauranga Intermediate hosted Reremoana School from Counties Manukau in the New Zealand Post Shield Northern Districts final and won the match sponsored by Scrapman by a convincing seven-wicket margin.

The visitors batted first and were quietly confident of making a good score but they came up against an inspired bowling spell from Emma Bettelheim, who took 4/3 off her four overs. Reremoana were bowled out for 61 in the 20th over of their innings.

Tauranga made no race of chasing down the target, making 62-3 with Eve Simmonds on 23 not out and Sophia Rose 21.

Tauranga coach Jake Ryan says it was a tough battle to win all four games played and he thought the final was "probably a bit more one-sided than I thought it would be".

"Reremoana came down prepared and raring to go but our preparation ahead of the match was better I think.

"Emma bowled full and straight and she was consistent, and as a captain she led by example which was outstanding ... We just played the ball as it comes and scored safely, rather than going out there thinking it is only a small total. I told them to bat the 20 if we had to and play smart cricket and they came in and did that."

Tauranga Intermediate finished third at the national finals last year, with Nensi Patel scoring the most runs with 343 from five innings.

Ryan would love them to win the title this year.

"To go back-to-back going down there is a huge achievement for us but hopefully we can do two better and win it this year. Two terms of hard yakka and preparation to get there to come but we hope to come back as champions."