IN a true team effort on Friday night Centennials Bulls came up with the goods in their do-or-die Royal Hotel Cup clash against Centrals, winning by 25 runs to keep their finals hopes in the Twenty20 competition alive.
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Joel Gurney (37 from 36) set the platform for the Bulls after they won the toss and elected to bat, before Bathurst's most in-form junior player Blake Kreuzberger belted 25 runs from just 11 deliveries to take Bulls to 139.
The Centrals chase never truly got going thanks to economical spells from Kyle Aubin (1-10) and Tyler Horton (1-19), before Mick Hutchinson (3-20) and Ethan Muller (3-22) tore through the middle and lower order.
Centrals' Zac Reimer, who earlier in the evening took 4-38, sent a scare through the Bulls camp with his unbeaten 24 off 14 balls but it wasn't enough for the Orange side as they ran out of overs with one wicket in hand.
"The younger boys stood up this game. Blake Kreuzberger hit 25 balls off very few balls and Ethan Muller stood up with the ball as well," winning captain Kurt Toole said.
"They didn't have much momentum in any spot throughout the game and we kept the pressure on them. We were a bit slow off the blocks batting but we managed to get up to 140 and we thought that would be enough.
"It's great to get that win because it means we're still a mathematical chance to make the finals."
Outside of Gurney and Kreuzberger no-one else from Bulls set the world on fire with their batting but small contributions through the middle order from Tyler Horton (16), Blake Aubin (13), Josh Toole (12) and Kurt Toole (11) were enough to help Centennials post a competitive total.
Centennials got off to an excellent start with the ball when they removed the big hitting Zac Bayliss (3) and bowled Dean Turner for 14.
Jake Pauletto (20) and Fletcher Rose (14) threatened to build momentum but their dismissals in successive overs put a stop to that threat and impacted the run rate.
Bulls play Lithgow Lightning this Saturday where another win could allow them to sneak into the top four, depending on other results.