ST Mary’s Tyntynder have stamped their authority on this year’s Swan Hill and District Cricket Association with a huge win over second placed RSL.
The two grand finalists met for the second time this season with virtually the same result — a landslide victory.
St Mary’s Tyntynder were able to rack up 206 runs with the bat in hand with a majority of their top order batsmen pitching in large scores to get their 40 overs off to a flying start.
The away side won the toss and elected to bat first, putting pressure on RSL from the get go.
Explosive opening batsman Jared Halligan scored 20 runs while number two Jonty Chaproniere scored a half-century before Corey Daniels chimed in 44 runs at number three.
The bowlers of RSL struggled, but so did a majority of their own batsmen.
The side only scored 87 runs in their full 40 overs, with Tom McGregor scoring their highest with 19 runs.
The defending premiers’ opening batsmen, Ryan Hinton and Stuart Patterson, scored 1 and 2 runs respectively, hurting their chances of catching the total set by last year’s runners-up.
RSL captain Hinton said his side were only blaming themselves for the tough loss.
“We dropped a couple of catches and that put us on the back foot from the get go, and we didn’t really apply ourselves with the bat,” he said.
“Our own errors let us down, we bowled too many wides, dropped catches in the field and we just sort of got ourselves out as well.
“It is a bit of a wake up call to remind us what we really need to work on… I think we will try and get wins going into Christmas and then comeback and restart.”
Hinton also said there may be a glimmer of hope about their season.
“We did pretty the same thing [last year], and we are probably going better this time around,” he said.
“We are confident we can turn it around, two-day cricket is better suited to us… but it was a rather forgetful day.”
Over at Swan Hill Showgrounds, Woorinen took it to Swan Hill and nearly came away with an unlikely victory in their match up.
Setting a total of 162 runs, it took Swan Hill 37.1 overs to finally end the day with four batsmen to spare.
Nyah District continued their winning ways at home with a victory over Ultima TUF.
While cellar dwellers Ultima TUF have been struggling, it took Nyah District 36.2 overs to bowl them out on 160 — chasing Nyah District’s total of 206.
