Cricket: Huntley 1st X1 third at nationals

The Huntley 1st X1 take a well-earned rest during the annual National Primary Schools Cup in Lincoln last week.

Huntley School posted its best result yet when finishing second equal on points at the annual National Primary Schools Cup in Lincoln last week.

Playing in the competition for the third consecutive season representing Central Districts, the Huntley 1st X1 tied with Raroa Normal Intermediate School and Medbury School on six points, but ended up claiming third on run rate differential.

The Twenty20 tournament for Years 7-8 boys was staged at the impressive facilities at the New Zealand Cricket High Performance Centre in Lincoln.

The Cup was won by Kings School with Medbury beating Huntley to take second place.

The final round saw Medbury School challenging Huntley School with both schools still in the running for a top two finish. Medbury won the toss putting Huntley into bat hoping to dismiss them cheaply and chase down their total quickly to improve their run rate in an effort to challenge for second place.

Medbury was able to do just that, bowling Huntley out for 80. That could have been many less if it wasn't for an outstanding innings of 45 off 34 balls from including 7 boundaries to Oscar McVerry. Medbury made short work of chasing down Huntley's total with contributions from across their top order achieving 84-4 after just 13 overs. This strong performance helped Medbury secure second place on run rate with three teams eventually finishing on six points.

"We are really proud of the boys and finishing second equal on points is our best result from our three years in a row at the Nationals," Huntley headmaster Sam Edwards said.

"However, on count back we finished in third which equalled our performance in 2015. We finished fifth last year."

Huntley's Oscar McVerry finished third best run maker of the competition, while George Pearce was the second highest wicket taker with his left arm spin. Both, along with Monty Sherriff were named in the tournament team.

"That was a great result and testament to our coach Anton Buys and manager Richard McVerry. We also had our biggest turnout of parents this year and help from Cricket Wanganui and Dilan Raj. Five of our team are Year 7 students.

"It was fortunate the West Indies touring side and the Black Cap arrived in Christchurch while the tournament was on and we had a visit from Black Cap George Worker who is a Huntley old boy. It showed the boys there is a clear pathway from the school to the highest level," Edwards said.

Huntley began the tournament with an 8 wicket win over Southland Boys High, beat Raroa Normal by 19 runs and Tauranga Intermediate by 12 runs before being beaten by eventual winners Kings School by 9 wickets and finally Medbury by 6 wickets.

Meanwhile, the Huntley girls X1 made the regional finals of the Central Districts competition for the first time, but missed the chance to represent the district in the National Primary Schools Shield at Lincoln.