When Central Park-St Brendan’s captain Brendan Scott departed the crease thanks to a ripping inswinger, chants of ‘’BILLY’’ rung out around Deakin Reserve.
The cheers came from Katandra supporters as they spurred on teenage talent Billy Holmes with the ball.
The 17-year-old had just picked up his second wicket with the final ball of his second over.
With adrenaline coursing through his veins, a stack of belief and with one important person on his mind, Holmes would go on to grab another wicket to finish with impressive figures of 3-11 off four overs to spearhead his side to a classic 22-run win.
“That was unreal. I’m really happy and relieved more than anything,” Holmes said.
“We put ourselves in a pretty tricky position only putting 130 on the board, but I sort of had that feeling that anything over 120 we can defend it because we have, probably, the best bowling attack in the comp.
“We backed ourselves and got the result we were looking for. It’s good to see us get the result after we played well all season.
“Credit to the boys that we stuck at it and never once dropped our heads in the field and I couldn’t be prouder.”
Holmes was tossed the ball by captain Ben Clurey at the start of the 19th over.
With the pressure sky-high his first ball went down leg-side for a wide, until he sharpened his radar and had the ball talk enough it caught the edge of Connor Holland’s bat and Nathan Hickey held on to the catch behind the stumps.
With his tail up, Holmes would go on to play an integral role in delivering Katandra its second Haisman Shield premiership in six years.
“I thought, this is my chance to prove my spot in the team,” Holmes said.
“I had the wide to start and then I got it to hoop a bit and then a bit of carry on in the celebration. It was good to finally get a good result.
“I thought yep, ‘I can do this’, and then luckily the other boys helped steer us home.”