The battle for fourth spot on the Geelong Cricket Association Division 1 ladder reaches a crescendo on Saturday and it’s set to be a thriller.
St Peters leads Highton in the race for fourth, but it could all come down to bonus points if both teams win, or lose.
Highton needs 231 runs to defeat St Joseph’s while St Peters will have a bigger run chase with North Geelong making 7/271.
Captain Nathan McCoach won the toss and bowled first. If the season was to end now, Highton would be fourth thanks to taking 10 wickets versus St Peters’ seven. Yes, it’s that close.
“(Getting) the 10 wickets was the main thing at the start of the day,” he said.
“Winning a toss and bowling I think sets up week two because our strategy is we see chasing the runs as a little bit easier this year because of the flat tracks and taking 10 wickets has been pretty challenging some weeks.”
With all 10 wickets taken, Highton had two uncomfortable overs to face, but Brady Somers and Zac Wills made it safely to stumps.
McCoach and Chris Young made early inroads with the ball at the start of play before the in-form Jonathan Casey (66) and Andrew Vine (76) got Joeys back on track.
Oliver Metcalfe chimed in with 34, but the two new-ball bowlers came back on and were able to wrap the innings up.
“We started really well, but they came back through the middle order with Casey and Vine and they could have gone 250, 260, 270,” McCoach said.
“But we pulled them back a bit later in the day which was good.”
Young took 4/27 from 18 probing overs while McCoach was superb with 5/62 from 23.
By his own admission, McCoach hasn’t had his best season, having previously taken 10 wickets at 45.2 while conceding almost five runs an over.
However, eight wickets in his last three games plus an economy rate of well under three runs an over in two of them has the seamer in-form and injury free.
“I haven’t had the best year to be honest,” McCoach said.
“I’ve kind of struggled with injury, starting pretty slow (and) missed a few games at the start of the season, but I’m starting to feel pretty good. Got my rhythm back, which is nice. I kind of felt bad because the others have been doing the bulk of the work so it’s finally nice to pull my weight, I guess.”
McCoach said his team’s focus will be making the necessary runs for the win rather than worry about what was happening between North Geelong and St Peters.
“Our focus is just to obviously get the six points first,” he said.
“That’s kind of where it stops with us. We can’t really be worrying about other results until we sort our own result out. Our focus is to chase the 230-odd runs that we need because if we start worrying about things that haven’t happened yet, it’s a dangerous game to play.”
A brilliant 140 from Philip Visser steered North Geelong to 7/271 at stumps against St Peters. Visser faced 189 deliveries to dominate the day’s play while Tom Webster toiled hard all day to take 4/73 from 23 overs.
Grovedale is on the verge of first-innings points against East Belmont. Sam Coutts took 5/56 and helped dismiss East Belmont for 107. In reply, the finals bound Tigers are 3/88 with Corey Paull unbeaten on 36.
Top side Newtown & Chilwell was dismissed for 248 against South Barwon. Michael Grohmann (69) and Lachie Sperling (55) got runs while Nick Butters kept South Barwon in the game with 5/62 from 22 overs.
