OPENER Stephen Wedderburn notched a century which helped Lucas Cricket Club defeat Clarendon by 70 runs to capture the 2018 Kingston Wharves Limited Under-15 40-over cricket title at Sabina Park on Tuesday.

It was a brilliant century of 125 runs by Wedderburn before he retired hurt. Before then he had cracked 13 fours and two sixes off 78 balls. He was also named man-of-the-match.

Scores were: Lucas Cricket Club 246 for nine off 40 overs, Clarendon Cricket Club 146 all out off 36.1 overs.

Jordan Johnson, captain of Lucas, was named player of the competition with his 456 runs, the most by any batsman, also taking sixteen wickets. He also received a special award for his top score of 325 runs made against Kingston Cricket Club, the highest score by any batsman in an innings.

The awards for the batsman scoring the most runs and the bowler taking the most wickets in the competition will be presented at a later date after the figures for both have been worked out.

Meanwhile, both captains, Johnson from Lucas and Adrian Weir from Clarendon, received the MVP awards.

Coach Marlon Ramdeen, who has been coaching Lucas Under-15s for the past four years, was elated after the club broke a 12-year drought winning a major trophy.

“All the players played their part for Lucas to come out as champions, but I had to single out captain Jordan Johnson, who played the most important roles for the team with both bat and ball,” Ramdeen said.

He said Clarendon are a good team which played well, but Lucas proved to be the stronger team in both the batting and bowling departments.

Dwight Stewart of Clarendon said the runs were attainable but they produced some poor batting. “The team got a very good start from the two openers, and from they departed the remaining batsmen struggled for runs and gave away their wickets very cheaply as they have made bigger runs in previous matches.”

The final got under way when Johnson — back from representing the touring West Indies Under-15 team to England — won the toss and elected to bat, and immediately he and his opening partner Wedderburn got the team off to a flying start with 50 runs after six overs. The partnership was broken with the score on 79, Johnson going for 38 that included six fours.

The rest of the Lucas batting crumbled and was left to the positive approach from the hard-hitting left-handed Wedderburn who kept the score ticking.

Wickets tumbled around Wedderburn, but he went on to score his century.

Wedderburn, had to retire due to cramp with his score on 125 and Lucas on 244, as he became the ninth wicket to fall before the Kingston team was bowled out two runs later for 246 in their allotted 40 overs. Raheim Lewis was the only bowler to take two wickets for 54 runs off 6.5 overs, while the other wickets were shared.

Clarendon began their reply strongly through openers Adrian Weir and Jovana McDonald with a brisk partnership of 50 runs off 8.1 overs, despite some steady bowling from Lucas.

Weir was at the heart of Clarendon’s batting and made his half century off 44 balls. He was leg before wicket to spinner Nathaniel Waul for a well-played 54 that included five fours and three sixes with Clarendon on 96.

Wickets then stumbled quickly, with only Kenardo Cameron figuring among the runs with 18. Wickets fell at 140, 146, 150, 156, 158, 159, 161, and 176 all out off 36.1 overs, with the last eight wickets falling for 53 runs.

The main destroyers were Waul, who captured four wickets for 31 runs off seven overs, and Roshane Clarke, who took three wickets for 17 runs off three overs.