The Leagues Club Panthers have repeated their 2015/16 effort to take out the 2016/17 Griffith District Cricket Association first grade premiership on Sunday.
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The crowning moment came with a little over an hour left in the match when Leagues Club captain Paul Plummer clean bowled Alex Flood.
As minor premiers, the Cougars just needed to bat out the match to claim the title and Flood had combined with Mitch Williams-Hedges in pursuit of the crown but a worried Plummer was good enough to remove the number 11.
“That’s awesome, real good,” Plummer said after the two-day match on Sunday.
“We set it up yesterday with 250 overnight, it was a bit disappointing to lose three quick ones [wickets] but we knew we had enough runs on the board, it was just a matter of the time.
“They showed a lot of resilience and batted for a long time.
“There was a bit of a worrying stage we thought ‘surely they can’t bat all day.’ They showed some good fight but in the end we were too good.”
The Panthers batted first and piled on the runs.
Reece Matheson (80), Jimmy Binks (40), Liam (29) and Ryan (35*) Greenaway all made solid contributions to the side’s final score of 268 and Plummer lauded his batsmen.
“Reecey, yesterday, he was our standout,” Plummer said.
“As a 16-year-old to show the composure that he did, it was a fantastic effort.
“He was man of the match in the one day final and he'll probably get it again in this final, I take my hat off to him. Jimmy Binks batted well, too.
“Everyone batted well and built partnerships, that's what it was all about, everyone played straight and did their job.”
Marathon man Flood bowled a mammoth 23 overs in claiming 5/64 by the end of the innings for Coro while Chris Mansell (2/56) also notched up some kilometres by bowling 20 overs.
Coro’s top order moved the side to 3/119 with Rob Rand (32), Dean Bennett (31) and Tom Valeri (22) all amongst the runs before disaster struck.
The Cougars lost three wickets for just one run with Harry Singh (3/43) doing the damage.
Despite the last five batsmen chewing up 195 balls collectively, it just wasn’t enough as Leagues Club claimed a 110-run win and added the two-day title to the one-day crown the side won in March.
Coro captain Haydn Pascoe said things didn’t fall his side’s way in the final.
“Unfortunately, a few things didn’t go our way,” Pascoe said.
“When you get a bloke out and he goes on to score 80, it makes a difference.
“That was huge and Tom’s lbw was ridiculous.
“Those two calls changed the whole concept of the match.
“But full credit to our boys, it was hard going on Saturday and if we bat for another hour, we win the trophy.
“It was a good year in the end to make the final.”