Wednesday evening was a quite historic night for the U15 Tarka girls. They beat the reigning National Lady Taverner’s U15 Hardball 20/20 Champions Newport in a nail biting match at North Devon CC.
The Tarka girls lost the toss. They bowled well for most of the game. Ellie Holland clean bowling danger player Jessica Thornton for 9 and Rose Ball bowling Sophie Osborne on 29. The girls fielded superbly and held a very strong and confident Welsh side to a reasonable score until a few expensive overs at the end saw the visitors score rise from 98 at the end of the 17th over to 141 at the end of the 20th over.  Newport’s Charlotte Scarborough was the pick of the Welsh batswomen scoring 58 NO.
The Tarka Girls came out fighting and with quite a total to chase, Eluned Davies opened bravely scoreing a few quick runs to get Tarka off to a positive start before she was bowled by C. Scarborough. Daisy Meadowcroft scored a fantastic 53 running hard and taking chances, before being narrowly run out. Carmen Clements again attacked the ball, taking quick singles and keeping the team on the run rate. Rose Ball stepped in. Tarka needed 16 off the last two overs and then only 2 to win off the last over. It took 4 incredibly tense balls to get there. When Rose Ball finally edged the 5th ball of the final over for 4 the team went mad. Many thanks to all at NDCC for their support particularly the coach (and caterer) Mark Overton and groundsman, Andrew Cameron.
Tarka U15 now meet Charlbury or Aldershot in the Zone final and if successful there would play in the National Final at Grantham in Lincolnshire on the 29th July.