THE Horsham Saints and Homers are in good positions to qualify for the Horsham Cricket Association’s A Grade grand final after solid opening days on Saturday.
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The Saints bowled first against Rup-Minyip at Dimboola, with the Blue Panthers missing their hard-hitting captain Travis Hair.
Rup-Minyip’s opening batsmen failed to get on top of the Saints’ bowling attack, with Ryan Metelmann, 16, and Dan Clark, 5, both dismissed cheaply.
Adam Carter top-scored for Rup-Minyip, reaching 52 before falling to Matthew Combe’s bowling.
Cameos from Matthew Downer, 27, and Victor Lothian, 20, helped Rup-Minyip post 169 before being bowled out.
Austin Smith was the pick of the bowlers for the Saints, picking up 4-46 off of his 12.4 overs. Smith helped clean up Rup-Minyip’s tail, while Matthew Combe claimed 3-46 from 17 overs.
Rup-Minyip’s stand-in vice-captain Ryan Metelmann said the Saints could still have a tough task ahead of them on Sunday.
“It’s one of those scores that’s tricky to chase, it definitely gives us a chance,” he said.
“We would have liked more but we will take the runs. Carter looked really good and batted well for his 52.
“It will come down to all of us and we all need to bowl pretty tight. Brent Hudson is the danger man if he can get a couple early and they are two or three down chasing 170, it won’t be easy for them.”
Meanwhile at City Oval, Homers showed why they are the team to beat in finals, smashing 8-340 against Laharum.
The onslaught began right from the beginning, with opening batter Simon Hopper quickly posting a half century.
Hopper was seeing it clearly onto the bat, and punished Laharum’s bowlers, finding the boundary all around the oval.
He put on a vital 139-run opening partnership with Sandy Hodge, who batted more patiently for his 36 runs.
The pair complemented each other well, with Hopper on the front foot, and Hodge happy to wait for the bad ball.
Hopper was finally dismissed for 95 runs off of George MacDuff’s bowling.
Chris Hopper was also prolific with the bat, finishing not-out on 86 runs.
Jason Kannar also chipped in with 22 runs as Homers posted a mammoth score.
Homers captain Jarred Combe praised his side’s entire batting line-up.
“Simon batted really aggressively at the start and hit good, clean shots,” he said.
“Sandy and Simon set our innings up early. Chris then batted really positively and helped build a really good total. Hopefully we can bowl well and defend that total.”
MacDuff took a team-high three wickets for Laharum, while Josh Mahony and Daniel Mibus both took two each.
