CASTERTON’S Alyssa Humphries has capped an incredible 12-month period with a third placed finish in the annual Una Paisley Medal vote count for the best player in the Cricket Victoria Premier Cricket Women’s competition.

Humphries (16 votes) was behind her captain and opening batting partner, Makinley Blows (22 votes), and Dandenong’s Poppy Gardner (18 votes) when the final votes were counted at the Cricket Victoria Premier Awards event.

The last year has been a whirlwind of competitions and accolades for Humphries that began with selection in the Victorian Women’s Under-23 Indoor Cricket squad for the National Championships, where she won selection in the Australian squad for the Indoor Cricket World Cup in Melbourne in October 2022.

Her performances at the World Cup saw Humphries gain selection in the World Eight, which is the best eight players in the world.

After coming down from that high, Humphries gained selection in the Victorian Country Cricket Women’s team for the Australian Country Championships which were held in Canberra in January, where the side was defeated in its semi-final after a successful preliminary round of matches.

Once representative cricket was finished Humphries settled back into Premier Firsts with Essendon-Maribyrnong Park (EMP) where she bats at the top of the order as a hard-hitting opener.

EMP went on to win the premiership against Melbourne, with Humphries (33) starring alongside Blows (77), added 97 for the first wicket which set the foundation for EMP to post 6-249 and then pouching two vital catches at first slip in the space of five balls as the Melbourne top order collapsed with the Bombers routing the opposition for only 97.

Humphries made 341 runs at an average of 48.50 to perform at the top of her game and she caught the eye of the umpires who voted her into third place.