IN October last year, the Muswellbrook Chronicle spoke to youngster Harry Scowen, who was preparing for his upcoming campaign for East Maitland and excited after having been named captain of the Upper Hunter representative side.
We even gave him the biggest compliment you can give a wicketkeeper-batsman and compared him to Australian Test and one-day legend Adam Gilchrist.
Fast forward to now and he has quite arguably surpassed any expectations that were on him ahead of the season, having scored more than 1000 runs, made a grand final, won another premiership and been named representative player of the year for the Maitland District Junior Cricket Association.
The young gun managed 1006 runs at an average of 40.24 across all competitions, and finished third on the Sydney IDCA ladder for top batting performers.
He particularly enjoyed playing for Eastern Suburbs White, where he made four unbeaten half centuries and finished with his average sitting at a lofty 137 as the team went on to become runners up.
This was an incredible effort as his mother even admitted she was only hoping he would make top 50 ahead of the season.
Scowen was ecstatic with how the summer went and had trouble picking the biggest highlight.
"I'm pretty pleased about it because I didn't know how I was going to go moving to the Maitland league," he said.
"But, it's been a pretty successful year down there.
"The rep player of the year award was one of my biggest achievements because it's an IDCA comp in Sydney, and for the whole team we had some good batters, so that's a pretty proud moment for the season."
The team success he encountered made him equally happy, with the representative side finishing top of the table while competing against the likes of North Shore, Hornsby and Newcastle.
"That felt very good because the Sydney comp was very hard, so it's a pretty big honour to take that out," he said.
As far as reaching four figures goes, Scowen claims it wasn't a thought going into the season but once it became a realistic goal he set his mind to it.
"I was on about 800 runs and I thought 'oh I can get to 1000 here'," he xplained.
"So, I got to 1000, which was a pretty big achievement for this year along with all of the other achievements," the 13-year-old added.
Not quite satisfied yet, he's keen to get to the next state carnival and test himself at an even higher level.
There seems to be no cap on what he can accomplish yet, and his name is sure to catch the eye of scouts in the coming years.
