PCA Heads into Finals with High Stakes on the Line Orazio Santalucia The battle for supremacy in the Peel Cricket Association hots up this weekend as the final’s campaigns begin across all men’s grades from A Grade – F Grade. Reigning premiers in A Grade Warnbro have the chance for back to back premierships, as do Shoalwater Bay in B Grade, White Knights Baldivis in E Grade and Warnbro again in F Grade. The premiers in, C Grade and D Grade will all be new as the reigning premiers in both grades (South Mandurah and Halls Head) failed to make the finals in 2022/23. The Wyllie Cup semi finals this week sees raging hot favourites Halls Head take on Shoalwater Bay for a spot in the Grand Final. Halls Head defeated Shoalwater twice in a week recently after winning the Retravision Premier T20 competition and then comfortably beating the Seals again in the league on the Saturday. But finals bring out the best and worst in players and this match will no doubt be a hotly battled contest, especially with Halls Head coming off a two week break (Last round bye and competition bye). White Knights Baldivis, who are looking for unprecedented success across the competition with teams in every finals campaign will look to end the premiership hopes for Warnbro who snuck into the top 4 with a final round victory. White Knights and Halls Head battle it out in the B Grade first semi final for direct passage into the grand final whilst Mandurah and Shoalwater Bay will clash to see who will continue into the next week of finals. White Knights may have 7 teams in finals action this week at least (2 teams in F Grade), but Shoalwater Bay will also have solid representation across the grades with sides in A-D grade finals action. Halls Head have sides in A-C grade finals. PCA Ladies Shine in Women’s Country Week Peel Cricket Association nominated TWO teams into the recent Women’s Country Week Competition held in Bunbury over the long weekend. A great outcome highlighting the growth in the game in Peel, both sides competed well and there were some real highlights across the board throughout the weekend including a couple of wins for Peel Blue and some close run contests in other rounds. Brooke Hutton (Shoalwater Bay CC) blasted scores of 82 and 77 in the first two matches on day one to start the campaign off with a bang, whilst Julie Ophel (Halls Head) scored 31 not out on the opening day also as well as taking 2 wickets. Danni Render (Halls Head) highlighted some great innovation in her innings of 21 versus Bunbury Red with some effective reverse sweeps which raced to the boundary. Jeanie Thompson, who captained Peel Blue continued her good form from a victorious Ladies T20 season with South Mandurah to make 39 not out versus Bunbury Blue in round 3. The highly anticipated round 4 ‘derby’ between the two Peel sides saw Peel Blue victors by 26 runs. Suelee Christie (South Mandurah) top scored for the Blue team with 26 not out whilst Rosie Marino (Halls Head) took 3 wickets for the Maroon side, and then also adding 21 runs in a strong all round match. Helen Moir (Pinjarra) took 3 wickets for the Blue team. The competition enabled over 20 women from the region to enjoy hard ball cricket in a more competitive environment than the competition they participated in during the season. The feedback was very positive and the Peel Cricket Association looks forward to being able to provide a hard ball competition from the 2023/24 season onwards.