The teams from the South-South on Saturday in Abuja for the fourth consecutive year reached the finals of the PwC/NCF Under-17 Cricket National Championships.
The tournament, in its fourth edition, has seen the two sides dominate the competition with three titles for the male and four titles for the female.
Playing against the South East in the girls’ category, South East won the toss and opted to field.
The bowling effort of Faith Okpara 3/16 was not enough to limit the defending champions, as they raced to 133/5 in 20 overs.
Player of the Match, Piety Lucky 49 (36), and teammate Peculiar Agboya 30 (20) did the job for the South-South zone, as they finished the innings on a high note.
In reply, South East managed to reach 67 runs/10 in 17.4 overs, as Lucky earned a four-wicket haul for 10 in 3.4 overs. South won by 64 runs.
The boys’ game category pitted the champions against North West, with South-South winning the toss and electing to bat.
Abraham Oaikena 27 (33) and Godswill Effiong 28(29) did the most for the defending champions, as they scored 128 all out in 24 overs.
To win, North West needed to score 129 runs, but the likes of Unity Ogbide’s 3/16 and Effiong’s 5/6 were instrumental in restricting the Northern side to 56/10 in 21.4 overs.
South won by 71 runs.
Earlier, South West defeated South East by 17 runs in the boys’ event and beat North West by seven wickets to claim third place positions in both categories.
At the end of the game, Theophilus Ibodeme, coach of South-South lauded the team’s performance.
“I am very happy with the players and the performance. It should Our hard work has paid off and hopefully we will keep improving on this feat.
“Also appreciation to the other teams. They have really improved from the last time we met them and they give us good competition,” he said.
A number of individual awards were also given to deserving players.
For Girls, Aisha Aliyu from North East emerged Best Behaved, while Precious Simon from North West was the Best Fielder and Kehinde Amusan emerged Best Fielder from South West.
The Best Batter was presented to Chinemerem Ihezuo of South East and the Most Valuable Player was presented to Piety Lucky of South-South.
The Boys event saw Abdullahi Ismail of North West go home as the Best Behaved, while Daniel Joseph of South West was Best Fielder.
The Best Batter was presented to South West’s Wale Odukoya, while South South’s Joseph Omonkhobhio was Best Bowler, just as the MVP award went to Kareem Gafar from South West.
