Maitland's junior representative teams triumphed in all three grand finals on Sunday claiming the U-13, U-15 and U-17 Central North Zone competition titles.
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Maitland cruised to big wins in the U-17 Col Dent Shield and U-13 George Denton Shield and won an against-the-odds thriller in the U-15 John Kilborn Shield reaching their target with one wicket to spare.
Maitland Maroon inflicted Tamworth Blues' first loss of the the U-15 competition in the grand final played in Tamworth.
After restricting Tamworth to 9/164, Maitland made 9/165 in reply with a wide delivering the winning run at the end of the 44th over.
In an anxious finish, Koby Warland was run out for three attempting a quick single with Billy Ellis.
Warland and Ellis shared in a 21-run partnership taking the score to 9/163. Ellis, who finished on 47 not out, scored a single to tie the scores and Quinn MacClure faced a dot ball before victory was secured with a wide.
It was a big two weeks for Ellis who scored a century last week to help secure Maitland's place in the final and was named player of the match in the grand final.
Chayce Smith was the other star with the bat making 40, with Rhys Tyrrell chiming in with 14 and Jacob Edmonds 10.
The bowlers set up the win with a tremendous team effort with the ball, either taking wickets or keeping the pressure on with economical bowling.
Ben Nicholls took 2-28 off his nine overs and Quinn MacClure 2-23 off eight.
Maitland Maroon were also underdogs going into the U-13 grand final, but shrugged off the tag with an emphatic performance with the bat and ball at Riverside Oval in Tamworth.
Led by a superb 78 not out off just 82 balls by captain Cailan Hartwell, Maitland posted 4/194 off their 40 overs, with Cody Mills also making 26 and Braxton Smith 22 in other fine contributions.
Hartwell backed up in a player of the match performance taking 3-26 and Dougal Evans took 2-15 as Maitland dismissed Tamworth for 129 in the 34th over.
In the U-17 Col Dent Shield, Maitland continued their unbeaten season with an eight-wicket win against Tamworth Gold who put up a brave fight at Robins Oval.
Tamworth's bottom aged team, Gold made a bright start and were racing along at almost five runs an over before Maitland captain Will Parkinson and Bailey Holstein put the clamps on and Sanchit Jagadeesan was first batter out for a quickfire 19 with the score on 40.
Parkinson finished with 3-27 and Holstein 1-17 and Tamworth were in trouble at 4-54.
However, Henry Haling with 28 and Charlie Foster 14 staged a comeback taking the score to 90 and threatening to go on to a big total.
Enter Sam Holz who turned the game with a player-of-the-match 4-31 and a run out as Tamworth were all out for 123.
Maitland started brightly with the bat and raced to 23 in the fourth over before Harry Dunn was dismissed for 14 by a spectacular one-handed catch by Nathan Clark stretching at full reach to grab a lofted straight drive.
When Tom Long (5) became Thomas Holmes' second victim, Maitland were 2-41, but in an excellent partnership Stirling Strachan made 50 not out off 52 balls and Parkinson 38 not out off 24 to see Maitland home at 2/124 in 17.1 overs.
Michael Hartshorn
Since starting in 1985 at the then Melbourne Herald, journalism has taken me around Australia from Victoria, to the Northern Territory, Cairns in Queensland and now Port Stephens. After all those years there is still something special about informing and connecting with readers.
Since starting in 1985 at the then Melbourne Herald, journalism has taken me around Australia from Victoria, to the Northern Territory, Cairns in Queensland and now Port Stephens. After all those years there is still something special about informing and connecting with readers.
