Longford booked themselves a TCL Premier League grand final berth with a 19-run victory over Hadspen in their second semi-final at Longford on Saturday.
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The reigning premier scored 176, with Dean Cousens top scoring with 46, Jackson Blair 25, Kieran Davey 22 and Dion Blair 20.
The Tigers lost opener Shannon Rumbel for a duck to be 1-0 and were 3-39 after losing Josh Adams for 18 and Ben Dodd for 13, with the Chieftains Jacob Walker dismissing their top three before Cousens and Jackson Blair put on 59 for the fourth wicket to steady the innings.
Walker finished with 3-37 from his eight overs to be Hadspen’s most successful bowler with Liam Reynolds picking up 2-26, from six, and Scott Driessen 2-28, off eight.
“It was a really good game of cricket that could have gone either way in the end,” Adams said. “We struggled at the top again with the bat but the middle order came to the party and got us to 176 which is about par at Longford and we held our nerve with the ball and in the field really well.”
ACL will play Hadspen in next week’s preliminary final after ending Beauty Point’s season with a 31-run victory in their elimination semi-final at University Oval.
Beauty Point won the toss and put ACL in with openers Simon Chappell (21) and Ben Harris (18) putting on 38 for the opening wicket.
But ACL then lost Sean Barry for a duck, Shaun Woods for two and John Kedey for 5 to slump to 5-56 before Drew Clark and Matthew Tidey rescued the innings with a 52-run partnership for the sixth wicket.
Clark top scored with 33 and Tidey made 20 as ACL managed to reach 143, all out, off 38.4 overs.
Nathan Van Noord picked up 3-28 with the ball for Beauty Point off his eight overs and Adam Turner took 3-40.
Beauty Point openers Brennan Cresswell and Nathan Burrows put on 36 in a good start with Cresswell making 24.
But when he was dismissed and Burrows followed for nine, and Beau Hills for two – the Point were in trouble at 3-39.
Jason Savage chipped in with 24 at No.4 but when he went they were 4-70 and never recovered eventually being dismissed for 112, off 33.3 overs.
Nathan Lewis picked up 3-28 with the ball for ACL, Chappell took 2-20, Clark 2-24 and Kedey 2-14.
“It was a bit of a struggle and we didn’t play that well but we won,” ACL captain Sean Barry said. “We bowled really well after they made a good start but then took regular wickets and once we got Jason Savage out we went through their lower order pretty quickly.”
