Bethlehem College drew St Johns College (Hamilton) in the first Northern Districts play off game on Monday. Winning the toss , BC put St Johns in to bat, and with a steady fall of wickets had them on the ropes at 85 after 17.3 overs. Luke Bryenton was our standout bowler with 3 for 17. With no standout individual batting performance we reached their total for the loss of just 6 wickets to go on to the final afternoon hurdle, the winner of the Waiuku College / Mahurangi College (Warkworth) game.
This turned out to be Mahurangi, and again winning the toss we elected to get them to set us a total to chase down.
Starting off ominously they reached 50 for just 2 off the first 10 overs and with this solid base to play from, a large total was threatening. The BC boys knuckled down though and with a brilliant last over from Dylan Wadsworth (3 wickets ) and another 3 wicket haul to Dylan Ramohitaj we restricted them to 105 for 8 off the 20 overs.
The chase followed and with a splendid opening partnership of 36 off just 5 overs Mitchell Fairweather and Jack Preston looked like they would comfortably get us close.
In what could only be classed as a classic cricketing collapse though, when Mitchells wicket fell, so too did the following batsman. With unfortunate regularity !.
Mahurangi took out the game with BC reaching just 89 and instead of us, it was them progressing through to the 50 overs games later this week. Maybe next year !!
