BATHURST'S under 14s and 12s teams may have gone down on Sunday but their seasons are far from over, as they head into the Christmas break knowing their finals hopes are still looking strong.
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Orange proved too good on their home turf for both of the Bathurst sides, claiming comfortable wins to continue their unbeaten runs in both competitions.
Bathurst's under 14s weren't at their sharpest in the field in their eight-wicket defeat at Country Club Oval.
The visitors had several chances to bring an end to James Harper's innings but the Orange player couldn't be brought down as his unbeaten 95 helped his side chase down Bathurst's 8-169.
Liam Cain was a standout with the bat as he worked his way patiently to a total of 66, and received support throughout the order to help Bathurst bat out their allotted 50 overs.
It was Bathurst's first loss of the season and it puts them in third on the ladder.
Bathurst coach Chris Warry said Orange's Harper was seeing the ball well from the outset.
"We bowled okay but he was just hitting it to all parts of the ground. It didn't matter where we put it. It was dispatched," he said.
"Liam Cain batted really sensibly for his score. Rupert Begg and him put on a good partnership of 62.
"We opened up our bowling with Seth Norris and bowled really tight. He kept them to not many runs early, and he ended up with 0-33 from his nine overs."
Unfortunately for Bathurst a handful of fielding errors kept them on the back foot.
"We had dropped catches, missed run outs and missed stumpings. We did it all. It was just one of those days," Warry said.
"We went in confident that we could beat Orange because we weren't at our best in our other two games and we were still able to win those. It was a similar problem in those games where our fielding wasn't up to scratch.
"We'll bounce back against Lithgow. Our bowling's not too bad and we're putting it on the spot but our fielding has to support the bowling.
"It might be just the wake up call for them that they needed."
Bathurst has the bye next round and will end their regular season with a game at home to Lithgow on February 16.
Meanwhile, the Bathurst under 12s were hungry to bounce back after a hard loss at home the previous Sunday, where an Oliver Brincat century took Orange to victory.
Bathurst got Brincat out for just 11 in the latest clash but one of his teammates, Taj Jordan, hit 77 runs to top score in Orange's 244.
It was a tough chase for Bathurst who were all out for 132.
Bathurst's 12s next play Blue Mountains at Morse Park on February 2.