TWO divisions of the Leongatha and District Cricket Association have been decided for 2024-25 with MDU comfortably home in C Grade Division 2 courtesy of an unbeaten opening partnership by the team’s captain Dale Thomas 51 not out and Clayton Fisher 90 off 112 balls.
Inverloch put up a brave fight with the bat to make 6/151 off their 35 overs at the Inverloch Rec with David Harris 31, Warren Stewart 45, Jason Smith 15 and another contribution of 41 to lay a good foundation but MDU had a liberal sprinkling of experience in the team and always had the chase in hand.
That wasn’t the case in C Grade Division 1 where OMK looked the team mostly likely to win when they were sitting pretty at 3/72 chasing Nerrena’s 9/108 off 35 overs at the East Campus. But with a variety of Nerrena bowlers chipping in with wickets, the match went right down to the wire.
Owen Fitzpatrick was a key wicket, caught by Billy Trotman and bowled by Cameron Baudinette after he’d made 38 off 51, but with the score on 5/87 and the target just 21 runs ahead, you still favoured OMK to take it out.
But it wasn’t to be and a steadily stream of wickets from there onwards saw Nerrena defend an unlikely winning score with little more than an over remaining. OMK finished the day all out for 102.
Other matches
The news from the Wonthaggi Recreation Reserve Number 2 Oval was a lot better for OMK, however with their Division A1 team starting superbly in the field and ultimately containing the benchmark team of the competition in recent years, Phillip Island, to just 171 off 84.4 overs.
The veteran Peter Dell, who has played a lot of cricket this year, helped get OMK off to a great start in combination with Travis Pickering who despatched Lachlan Cleeland for a duck and Dell, bowling Kurt Lane for 3 in the first two overs.
With Brodie Johnston leading a rear-guard action, Phillip Island battled hard and looked a chance to get to 200 late in the day on Saturday with 9th batsman Timothy Niven 37 holding up an end while Johnston pushed on towards a century.
But it wasn’t to be with Tom Wyatt coming on to claim the crucial wicket of Johnston out for stoic 83 off 230 deliveries and Niven out for 37 off 146 deliveries.
The teams returned to the Butch West Oval tuff on Sunday, from 11am with OMK eyeing the target of 172 for victory.
Elesewhere, the batting teams in A2, B1 and B2, Inverloch 226 v Nyora at Scorpion Park in Leongatha in A2, Wonthaggi Club 221 v Nerrena at the Nerrena Rec in B1 and Leongatha Town 217 v Foster at the Foster Golf Course ground in B2 look to be in the preferred position but each are gettable totals and a successful chase would not surprise.
Get out there and support your teams on the last day of cricket for the year in the LDCA.
