Reed Under 11s completed a fantastic unbeaten league season but suffered an agonisingly close defeat in the Hertfordshire Junior League (HJL) Quarter-Final last Monday evening at Reed to Wheathampstead the eventual Hertfordshire Championship winners at Finals Day on the following Sunday. The Reed boys were the stand-out team across all of the HJL groups winning every match and by some staggering margins. Like in the first round of 4 matches already reported on this season, the team were dominant and even more so playing some outstanding cricket in the second half of their campaign. The first of the second set of their league matches was likely to be the league decider against a strong Hitchin team (who themselves lost out in a close Quarter-Final encounter this week) and Reed put in probably their performance of the season with some fine bowling and fielding. The Heslam brothers did the damage with the ball with Josh picking up two early wickets and then 9 year-old younger brother Eddie Heslam producing figures of 5 for 17 ripping through the dangerous Hitchin middle order. This was well supported by Henry Cook (2 for 5) and superb fielding, Rory Longland with two excellent catches, E Heslam direct hit run out and a fine stumping by wicket keeper Ethan Fox. Reed put the icing on the cake with J Heslam and Fox knocking off the runs with no wickets down only Heslam retiring at 25 and it was left to Cook to secure the winning runs. The next game saw a comfortable victory over Datchworth with Reed racking up 158-3 in their 20 overs. Runs for J Heslam (16), Fox (25 retired), Cook (25 retired), E Heslam (24) and Jon Green [...]