Last weekend, the Otago Girls’ First XI cricket team competed in the QBE Insurance Bates Cup Qualifiers for Nationals, competing against St Hildas and Columba College. This was a very cool opportunity as we got to play against some of our friends from different schools.

Our first game was against St Hildas on Sunday, they put on a score of 177 (Ella Bezett from St Hilda's got 100), Eleanor Geddes was the sole wicket taker for Otago Girls on Sunday, bowling an amazing ball and taking out the stumps. In the second innings, Otago Girls were bowled out for 81 runs. We put up a fight but we didn’t take the victory, Alice Ussher was outstanding with getting 42*off 38 balls not out.

The following day our First XI played Columba College in a tough battle to get into the finals. This game was very intense. Columba batted first getting 153 runs only losing 4 wickets. Rowan Wilson got 2 wickets and Jorja Hobbs, our keeper, got 2 caught-behinds and a catch, keeping the batters on their toes. For our batting innings we got very close getting 133 runs. Emily Aubin was the top run scorer for Otago Girls scoring 37 runs off 42 balls. Unfortunately, we did not make the final with St Hildas taking the win, making it into the Girls Secondary School Nationals in Lincoln this December.

We also want to thank all the supporters who came to watch us last weekend.

And a massive thank you to Ms Gilham for all her effort she put in for us over the tournament and getting us prepared for our games. A lot of stuff has to happen in the background for everything to go smoothly.

Overall we had a great experience, made lots of memories with the girls and are looking forward to doing it all again next year. You can, too, if you sign up for term 4 to get to know the team and see how much you love it!