THE Somerset Women and Girl’s Awards Night has been hailed as a great success by everybody who was present in the County Room last week.

Guest of honour Matt Maynard joined in with the 90 plus players, coaches, officials, families and friends who came together to celebrate the successful season that had been enjoyed by all of the Somerset representative teams in 2014.

Women and Girls head coach Caroline Foster welcomed everybody to the evening and reflected on a season during which over 3,000 girls had enjoyed coaching from the Chance to Shine scheme, and 90 girls team had taken part in county wide competitions.

The SCB coach gave a brief overview of the Somerset girls Under 13,15 and 17 teams and went on to talk about the pathway to the top, including the ECB talent indentification programme.

Maynard, the Somerset Director of Cricket who was carrying out his first official duty since his appointment, then stepped up to make the first of the awards for the Somerset Ladies Cricket League after Emma Whitehead from Weston super Mare CC received a vote of thanks for her continuing hard work.

The highest individual innings in the league was scored by Minehead Ladies’ Carol Matravers who made 97 against Wells.

The batting award was won by Jemma Turner from Bridgwater who made 318 runs from her nine innings during the season, including two 50s and a best of 88.

The bowling award went to Charlotte Jennings from Minehead CC who took nine wickets.

The Somerset Ladies Cricket League was won by Bath Wanderers while Bridgwater took the runners-up spot.

Under-13 coach Dave Peck then gave a brief report on the team’s performance over the season in addition to which there was a video presentation capturing some of the highlights of the summer.

The Under-13 batting and bowling awards were both won by Anna Parkinson.

Caroline Foster reported on the Under-15s season which was supported by a video compilation of the summer highlights.

The Under-15 batting award was won by Emily Bayliss who had a top score of 54, while the bowling award went to Lauren Bowen-Jones.

The Under-17s enjoyed a highly successful season ending second in the T20 as well as doing well in the 45 over competition.

Following a video presentation of the high spots of the season the Under-17 batting award was won by Emma Godman who scored 242 runs and an average of 30.25, while the bowling trophy went to Lorraine Sczepanski who sent down 70 overs took 17 wickets with a best of 4-17.

The Somerset Women’s team stuttered a little at the start before recovering well to reach the play off in Division Two, where they suffered an agonizing last ball defeat.

In the T20 competition Somerset will be competing in the top flight in 2015 after winning promotion this summer.

The Somerset Women’s batting award was won by Sophie Luff while the bowling award was won by Lauren Shrubsole.

During the evening Maynard talked about aspects of his cricketing career and some of his hopes and aspirations at Somerset.

Caroline Foster said: “It was great to see so many people coming along to support our evening and I would especially like to thank Matt Maynard for coming along and presenting our awards.

“Each year we are seeing more and more girls and women playing cricket in schools and clubs Somerset and the future is certainly looking bright.”

“We would like to thank Somerset for all of their support through the year and also for allowing us to host this special evening here in the County Room.”