New Plymouth Girls' looking for seventh straight title

New Plymouth Girls’ High School will be looking for a seventh successive win to extend their outstanding record at the New Zealand Community Trust Girls’ Cricket Cup tournament in Taupo this week.

NPGHS have claimed the title for the last six years and have the opportunity to add to that as one of the eight teams contesting this year’s secondary school girls’ cricket national finals tournament.

This year’s finals, the sixteenth in the history of the event, will be held for the second time in Taupo at Owen Delany Park.

The eight finalists, who have despatched 120 other schools along the way to the finals, comprise competition winners in each association plus the runners-up of the two associations with the most entries, which this year are Auckland and Central Districts.

The finalists are: Diocesan for Girls (Auckland), Westlake Girls’ High School (Auckland), Waikato Diocesan School, New Plymouth Girls’ High School, Havelock North High School, Wellington Girls’ College, Christchurch Girls High School and Blue Mountain College (West Otago).

From last year’s tournament there are four new finalists: Diocesan for Girls, Westlake Girls’ High School, Christchurch Girls High School and Blue Mountain College, while the other for schools are all returning. New Plymouth Girls’ High School are in the finals for a record 13th time, having won the coveted NZCT Girls’ Cup seven times in total.

The NZCT Girls’ Cup is a great occasion for schools to compete against the best and is a critical component of the player development pathway for secondary school girls. Numerous White Ferns have played in the NZCT national finals tournament in the past, including Haidee Tiffen, Aimee Watkins, Sara McGlashan, Ros Kember, Suzie Bates, Maria Fahey and Rachel Priest.

The eight schools in the finals are divided into two pools of four teams. Within each pool the teams play a round-robin contest over the first three days, before the teams are ranked on performance. On day four cross-over matches take place between the two pools to decide the 2009 NZCT champion and final placings for the tournament.

The NZCT national finals tournament will be opened at Owen Delany Park at 9.30am on Thursday, December 10 and the first round 40 over matches will get under way at 10.30am. The pools and draw for day one are:

GROUP A
Diocesan School for Girls v New Plymouth Girls’ High School
Christchurch Girls’ High School v Wellington Girls’ College

GROUP B
Westlake Girls’ High School v Havelock North High School
Waikato Diocesan School v Blue Mountain College