The Santa Cruz Primary School Kiddy Cricket team is the champion of the WICB/Scotiabank Inaugural Kiddy Cricket Festival after defeating Howard Cooke Primary from Westmoreland by 39 runs at the Kaiser Sports Club in St Ann recently.

Santa Cruz got to the final match after playing 50 preliminary zonal matches and inter-parish play-offs over a three-week period.

The sports club came alive with spectacular colours from the school teams, and buzzed with a flurry of activities as the close to 300 kiddy cricketers and their supporters converged on the complex to compete in a full day of cricketing.

The day bowled off with a skills display session, which led up to four quarter-finals, two semi-finals and the electrifying grand finale between Santa Cruz and Howard Cooke.

Santa Cruz, a newcomer to the Kiddy Cricket programme, came out strong with an enthusiastic performance as they made 171 runs.

Victorious coach Carl Bryan accredited the victory to the hard work each team member put in.

“The team members really wanted to win badly, they love cricket and followed my coaching instructions to the letter and played real hard. They have been training since October and were quite sharp coming into the finals,” he said.

Apart from the championship trophy, there were prizes for the Best Performing Bowler, Carrick Stewart (Howard Cooke Primary); Best Performing Fielder, Hadeen Hall (New Works Primary); Best Performing Batter, Ramoy Francis (Old Harbour Primary); and Most Disciplined School (Zion Hill ).