COLLEGE has broken through to finally claim the Hamilton and District Cricket Association HDCA) Twenty20 title, smashing St Andrew’s by seven wickets at Haymes Paint Oval on Thursday night.

The Eagles were chasing 169 for victory after losing the toss and skipper, Charles Murrie, led from the front with a stunning knock of 86-not-out from just 43 balls to ensure College got the win.

It wasn’t all smooth sailing for the Eagles though, with the Drews starting their innings with positive intent.

Both Jacob Hill and Brendan Huf were back in the sheds with 32 on the scoreboard, but it was Lee Emsley who gave St Andrew’s a sniff of victory in his 200th club game.

The aggressive right-hander started off slow and made the most of a chance when he was dropped at long on with seven runs to his name.

Emsley smashed his way to 50 from 24 balls, before teeing off with three consecutive maximums to elevate the run rate.

Some sharp work from Russell Bennett in the field created a chance with Emsley caught short of the crease when searching for a single to dismiss the number four batsman for 71.

Some late innings heroics from Jayden Polaski (27 off 13 balls) helped push the Drews’ tally up to 8-168 after 20 overs.

Both Bennett and Ross Milne collected two wickets each for College.

Murrie and Heath Schmidt combined for a 35-run opening stand before the latter was dismissed for 12, before Jock Barrie fell victim to Angus Harms for a duck, but Hamish Bailey (37) and Henry Bensch (26) offered support to their skipper, as College reached the target with three wickets down and more than five overs remaining.

The College skipper said it was great to breakthrough and win a final for the club.

“It has been a little while, we have had a couple of goes at it now and it is good to finally get the monkey off our back and win one,” he said.

“It helps we have so much depth in the squad, it really takes the pressure of blokes throughout the team.

“It makes it a lot easier for me at the top of the order as well.

“Everyone just seems to be stepping up at the moment and hopefully we can keep building and getting better and better as well.”

With College winning the final, the club will now progress through to next month’s Sungold Cup in Warrnambool as the HDCA representative.

Murrie said the prospect of going down to the region’s best T20 competition was exciting and backed his team to perform well.

“We are really excited for it actually, as a group we are enjoying each other’s company and we have got a really great group,” he said.

“We want to take our kids down there and let them have a red hot crack at it.

“We will take as many down there as we can and we are excited about our prospects down there.”