Sidmouth cricketers did well at the Devon Youth Cricket awards evening, winning four age-group awards, writes Conrad Sutcliffe.

More than 300 young cricketers, parents and coaches packed into the function suite at Sandy Park for the presentations.

Sidmouth CC’s Max Hancock with 17 wickets took the U13 bowling award and claimed player of the year for the team in a three-way fight with Luke Medlock and Jack Moore.

Hancock won the same two awards in 2014.

Byron Knowles – Sidmouth and Millfield, who missed out in the U14s’ batting awards, had more than adequate compensation a players’ player.

Harvey Sargent completed the quartet by being named player of the year in the U16 county side.

Sargent’s 438 runs were not enough to win the batting prize though, which went to Joe Hagan-Burt.

Sargents stats for the season included an age-group record score of 189 not out against Coventry Cricket Board.

Sargent passed Richard Baggs’ previous highest individual U16 score of 132 against Dorset - a record that had stood for 24 years.

The awards evening was extended this year to include the women’s county team and the full Devon men’s side.

Among the other youth winners were Ottery St Mary youngster Lawrence Walker, who took player of the season in the U10s, and Clyst St George batter Joe Farmer at Under-11.

Sidmouth had two more winners in the adult game – Devon CCC’s player of the year Zak Bess and Women’s player of the year Jodie Dibble.

England international Dibble scored 219 runs at an average of 31.20 and took nine wickets at 21.11 each.

Although Devon CCC had a dreadful season in the Minor Counties Championship – they finished bottom without a win to their name – there were some success stories.

The most notable was that of Exeter all-rounder Zak Bess, who topped the bowling averages with 18 wickets at 25.27 in his first full season in the team.

Although Bess plays for Exeter, the family home is in Sidmouth.