Western Suburbs co-captain Mitchell Fisher put celebrations of an outright win against arch-rivals Easts behind him to claim a crucial hat-trick to help the Plovers gain a Twenty20 semi-finals spot.
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While still to be confirmed officially, preliminary calculations have Wests taking the fourth spot in the Hunter Valley Cup along with unbeaten teams Northern Suburbs, Raymond Terrace and Kurri Weston.
The date of the semi-finals which will be followed by the final has yet to be decided.
Fisher’s hat-trick in the final over of his side’s win again Tenambit Morpeth and an amazing 113 from just 50 balls by Singleton’s Daniel Storey were the highlights of an entertaining qualifying rounds of the annual T20 competition on Sunday.
Fisher admitted Wests celebrations of their outright win against Easts went well into the night and it wasn’t ideal preparation for three Twenty20 matches the next day.
“You don’t get an outright against Easts every week so it was a big celebration,” he said.
“I got the hat-trick in the final over against the Bulls. It gave us two wins for the day and we lost the final game to Terrace but according to calculations did enough to get the final spot in the semis-finals.”
Raymond Terrace put the disappointment of a big loss to Kurri Weston on Saturday behind them to win all three games on Sunday to claim their spot in the Hunter Valley Cup semi-finals.
At Lorn Park Storey’s unbeaten ton which include 10 sixes enabled Singleton to amass 4-182 to chase down Port Stephens 6-181 in game two at Lorn Park.
However, Singleton lost their first encounter to Norths being restricted to 8/107 before the Black Caps replied with 2/110 in 15.3 overs. Norths had a big win against Port in the final match of their pool after scoring 4/184 with Logan Smith making 70 and Mitch Saxby 60.
Kurri-Weston’s irrepressible start to the 2018-19 season continued over to the Twenty20 format with comprehensive wins against Upper Hunter and City United at Lorn Park to book their spot in the Hunter Valley Cup semi-finals.
After beating reigning premiers Raymond Terrace on Saturday, the Warriors backed up to beat 2018-19 first grade title favourites City United in the T20 on Sunday.
They had a comprehensive 63-run win against City United at Robins Oval after earlier accounting for Upper Hunter by 84-runs.
Pleasingly for the Warriors, the wickets and runs were shared around with first grade skipper Josh Tuckwell scoring 42 and 32 on Sunday against Upper Hunter and City United in Kurri Weston’s totals of 8/174 and 3/180 respectively.
Sam Dalibozek top scored with 60 not out and Grant Lowbridge made 46 against Upper Hunter. Isaac Barry smashed 66 and Casey Capper made 57 against City.
Nathan Cliff, who has starred in second grade, kept his name in first grade selection calculations with 3-2 against Upper Hunter and 2-12 against City.
Alex Seamer collected 2-14 against Upper Hunter and 2-28 against City to take his season tally across T20 and first grade to 15.
Jono Hickey also picked up 2-23 against City.
