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Otago Sparks vs Central Hinds
The Sparks won the toss and elected to bowl. This set the tone for the entire match.
Hollie Armitage went quickly for 4 getting bowled by Linsey Smith. With the Hinds down 1 in the powerplay early.
Georgia Atkinson then went 2 overs later off Linsey Smith's bowling with Molly Loe taking the catch. The Hinds were 11/2 in the powerplay in the middle of the 4th over.
It was then Greig who went for 1 the next over with Eden Carson taking the catch of Emma Black's bowling and the Hinds were 12/3 in the powerplay.
Flora Devonshire was promoted up the order but this didn’t work as she well for four and Black had a second wicket.
Emma McLeod and Rosemary Mair did their best to get the Hinds back into the game as they put on a 50-run stand for the fifth wicket.
However, when McLeod went for 23 to Carson it got the Sparks back on top of the game.
Rowe could only add seven runs and Mair went for 32 with Black getting two more wickets.
Kate Gaging (7*) and Claudia Green (15*) got the Hinds to 107/7.
With Otago getting off to a solid start with the bat through a 60-run stand for the first wicket between Suzie Bates (44) and Bella James (19) the game was always going to head in their favour.
Even though the Sparks lost Bates to Hannah Rowe and James was run out by Green.
Felicity Robertson (20*) was able to steer the side to victory even though Priyanaz Chatterji picked up the wickets of Polly Inglis (7) and Caitlin Blakely (11).
The Sparks took a six-wicket win with more than three overs to spare.
Otago Volts vs Central Stags: Otago got off to a solid start with the bat through Luke Georgeson (22) and Hamish Rutherford (26) to get them close to the 50-run mark through the opening stand. Tom Bruce and Ajaz Patel got the wickets of the two openers respectively.
Max Chu was run out for nine, but it was the total that was going to need to be formed through captain Dean Foxcroft and youngster Thorn Parkes.
Both Foxcroft (42) and Jake Gibson (3) fell in the penultimate over to Jayden Lennox with Jamal Todd (2*) and Parkes (25*) seeing Otago to 139/5.
Central struggled to score runs early on as they could only muster 22 runs in the powerplay and this was aided by some superb bowling with Jacob Duffy getting Jack Boyle (1) and Curtis Heaphy (15). Georgeson also ran out Cleaver for two.
Will Clark tried to do his best to get the Stags into a position to score the runs but he too fell for 19 in the thirteenth over with only 57 runs on the board for the visitors.
Bruce and Doug Bracewell knew they needed to attack if they wanted to send the Stags through to the finals and they did with 50 runs on the board in just over five overs.
As the Stags started to cruise to victory, Travis Muller got the wicket of Bracewell for 30 and then Georgeson had Bevan Small for one.
Bruce fell in the final over with still eight runs needed for the win and four balls left. He went for a well-made 63 from 44 with the wicket going to Gibson.
Patel and Blair Tickner got the Stags into a position of needing three runs to win from the final two balls, but Gibson bowled Patel for two.
Lennox came out and hit the final ball for two with Gibson dropping the ball and not being able to make the run out.
The match resulted in a tie with both teams making 139 each.
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