A LAST-gasp victory over Croydon capped Endeavour Hills’ club-record VSDCA season at Croydon Park Oval on Saturday.
First XI debutant Jarrod Russell scored the winning single off Croydon’s Ash Hamer with eight balls to spare to see the Hills home by just three wickets.
Endeavour Hills captain-coach Vaughan Baxter – in his last match in the role – produced an unbeaten knock of 69 to lift his team off the canvass after it slumped to 5/60 in response to Croydon’s 7/208.
Croydon openers Nick Martin (63) and Andrew Hurley (29) gave the hosts a brilliant start before Richard Saniga orchestrated the latter’s dismissal with the total on 56.
In-form Hills quick Matthew Foenander (0/41 off six overs) copped the brunt of Martin’s and Hurley’s brisk beginning.
But slowly Endeavour Hills’ attack reined Croydon in, with Saniga, Englishman Richard Evans (3/42) and left-arm spinner Shane Peake (2/36) leading the way.
Peake’s two-wicket haul gave him 34 victims for the summer – good for second-most in the South-East competition – and he played an important role with the bat later in the afternoon.
Fifteen-year-old medium-pacer Lachie McIver also impressed with an economic second spell at the death.
Croydon’s great start promised much more than the final tally, but it also could have been much worse after falling to 6/148 before a 60-run seventh-wicket stand between Kaine Wallace (35) and skipper Brent Kremer (29 not-out).
Lenny van der Werff, fresh from his maiden century, and Evans got off to a flier before it all went wrong for the Hills.
The visitors lost 3/0 from 1/47 and when Chris Peake trudged from the field the score was 5/60.
But veterans Baxter and Peter Edwards (40), both members of Endeavour Hills’ all-time best team, began the rescue mission.
Edwards helped Baxter take the score to 134 and Shane Peake (32) picked up from where the former left off.
Baxter and Peake kept the required run-rate under six runs an over and looked set to chase down the target.
But Kremer caught Peake behind the stumps off Hamer to add further intrigue to the thrilling contest.
That brought Russell to the crease with another 13 runs required and, despite a nervous swing at the first ball he faced, he proved up to the task.
The Hills finished the season in sixth place – only six points out of the finals – with six wins, three draws and four losses and its 45 points crushed the club’s previous best of 33.
Baxter was delighted with his players’ record-breaking feats.
“Everyone can’t believe it. It’s been a very successful year from the ones’ perspective,” he said.
“To end up on 45 points and a game outside the finals after we said all along we’d be lucky to win two or three games was a really good effort.”
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