TOP-four spots are up for grabs with four weeks of play remaining before Swan Hill District Cricket Association enters finals.
While it looks as though Nyah District and St Mary’s Tyntynder have wrapped up the top two, the distance between third and sixth is just two games.
Woorinen and Wandella head into the pointy end both on nine wins, two games behind St Mary’s Tyntynder and two ahead of Barham Koondrook and RSL.
Beneath the chasing pack sit an Ultima TUF side who have had to navigate a challenging 2023-24 season, having just two wins.
While the Roodogs had last week off, one of their wins came late last month against a talented Barham Koondrook.
Ultima TUF captain Kade Benfield said that win might not have been possible without some lower-order heroics from Jordan King.
“Jordan King bowled really well in that game, he took six (wickets) for not very many,” he said.
“He and Sam Nelson also made some late runs, both scoring more than 20, which really pushed us to a more competitive total.
“Jordan has batted in the top four for a lot of his career and it’s only sort of since I became captain that he’s moved down the order to focus more on his bowling.
“He’s the head of our attack and he’s previously won a league bowling award, so we all know how dangerous he can be with the ball.
“He is one of those guys who we turn to when we need a boost, or to really turn a game around.”
The Roodogs bowlers will need to be at their best this weekend against Nyah District, but Benfield said his team were ready for the challenge.
“I think you’ve just got to stick to your process and bowl as tight as possible to them,” he said.
“You can’t give them any width or anything too short, they just wait on those poor balls.
“If you can just bowl even six good balls to them, they can lose a bit of patience.
“We feel like it’s a lot easier to build that pressure up on sides with the red ball.
“(Cassidy) Sibley is another one we look to, even as a spinner I think he’s pretty dangerous and keeps things pretty tight.”
Ultima TUF have remained competitive in a handful of games, but have also been on the receiving end of a few thrashings.
And the task doesn’t get much easier, rounding out the season with games against each of the current top four.
But Benfield said he didn’t have any concerns about how his young side were developing and some late-season wins would be just reward for the side.
“We’ve got an extremely young side at the moment,” he said.
“I think we’ve got three blokes above the age of 29 and the rest are below 23.
“We’ve got a lot of young blokes coming through, who are already scoring 20s.
“Who knows, next year they might be able to turn those into scores of 40s or 50s.
“While it has been a bit of a disappointing season, I’m not too worried about it because I’ve seen so much progression.
“If we can pinch a couple of wins late in the season, it really would prove that we are still building as a side.”
Elsewhere, Murrabit will be hoping to quickly forget last week’s game as they take on finals aspirants Wandella.
Another side looking to return to the winners’ list will be RSL, who are hosted by St Mary’s Tyntynder.
Swan Hill travel to Barham Koondrook in search for their second win of the season.
