Batting shortfalls and the bowling yips has cost Greater Northern Raiders a second T20 - and season - victory on Saturday to North Hobart.
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Notwithstanding a loss in a rain-affected 10-over game, the Raiders failed to reach a run a ball for a fourth time in five appearances in a month.
The one occasion Andrew Gower's charges reached the par mark, they posted 7-132 and pocketed a maiden win after 13 attempts trying.
The Raiders took the game into the last over, but in no way were they half a chance.
"We were pretty happy because we took it pretty deep. The wicket was a bit tricky to bat on early," Gower said.
"We sort of talked about 120-125 being on par, so we probably left 10 or 15 in the shed. At the end of the day, that was the difference between winning and losing."
But later there was a subplot in the penultimate over.
North Hobart battled after the halfway mark in its stubborn run chase at the TCA Ground, scoring just five or less runs an over five times.
Raiders captain Miles Barnard threw the ball to Sam Artis for his second and the 19th over and the 16-year-old conceded a game-changing 14, including a first-ball six.
The Demons would strike the winning runs off the next ball in the final over to secure the comeback by five wickets.
"It's not easy for any one to bowl those death overs - they're tricky overs, but that's all learning for them as we move forward," Gower said.
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"It was still a good effort; I am super proud of the guys."
The Raiders earlier had got off to a strong start until Jake Williams was run out for 28 off 45 balls - and top-scoring for the third straight week - in a 46-run opening stand with Brodie Hayes (17 off 27).
The loss of 6-54 after that kept the visitors to just 7-107.
"We talked about making sure someone in our top four is there in the last four or five overs and that didn't happen today," Gower said.
"It probably hurt us a little bit towards the back end where we only scored 28 runs off the last five overs. If we make that 40, we get past 120 and we're in the game."
Jackson Young's debut was memorable, taking two early scalps to have North Hobart stumbling around at 3-22.
Jack White steadied up the Demons with 33 off 46 balls, but it was keeper Lewis Drury that saved their innings with an unbeaten 37 off 26.
Young stood out with 3-21, while Ollie Wood was bowled out early to finish with 1-13.
"We took a risk and bowled Wood four overs up front because we thought we needed to get ahead of the game," Gower said.
"We took the risk because we wanted to wickets to put on the pressure early.
"It would've been good to have him bowling one or two at the end, but it's a good learning curve for Sam."
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