SAINT Stanislaus' College came within one win of defending their Berg Shield title on Monday as they were stopped short in the decider against St Augustine's College.
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Stannies came close to adding to their 2019 and 2017 titles in the year 10-and-under statewide knockout competition but were bested by six wickets in the final.
The Bathurst school made their way to 5-141 from their 20 overs, led by an entertaining unbeaten knock of 66 from Tom Lynch.
Lynch blasted 21 runs off the final over to give Stannies a confidence boost before heading into the field.
But on a small ground and on a synthetic wicket it wasn't quite enough to keep the St Augustine's batsmen at bay.
While Stannies did little wrong with the ball, the opening partnership from their opponents was a cautious and disciplined century stand.
It gave St Augustine's the necessary platform to build their innings from, with a late stream of sixes taking them past the target.
Tom Lynch was also great with the ball, taking 2-8.
In the semi-final earlier in the day Stannies put on 7-120 and restricted opponents Holy Cross College Ryde to 9-88.
Ethan Comerford led the way with the ball as he took 3-25 and Will Poole had 2-11.
Will Brown reached his half century with 52 and Blake Kreuzberger was the next best with the bat on 26.
At one stage Holy Cross were 2-56 in their chase but on-point bowling from the Stannies attack helped stem the flow of runs.
Meanwhile, Stannies' 1st XI are preparing for the finals stage of ISA Cricket this Saturday.
The team are chasing a big improvement against St Pius X College after last weekend's shock defeat at the hands of Oakhill College.
Stannies coach Tony Fisher said Oakhill turned up ready to play.
"Oakhill in their previous two games had scored only 60 against Pat's and 80 against Scots All Saints so I'm sure their coach had them geared up to score some runs," he said.
"On the wet outfield they won the toss and chose to bat, as you would, and we bowled well early on. We really couldn't utilise our spinner because the ball was wet and they kept moving along and their opener ended up scoring 82.
"It was a really good bowling and fielding performance in the end."
Oakill made their way to 9-179 and Stannies could only muster up 113 in response.
"We didn't bat well at all. Cooper Brien and Blake Kreuzberger were out early. Jack Goodsell was our mainstay, with 41 runs, and he bowled well so he actually had a really good game," Fisher said.
"They put the pressure on our bottom order and we were looking at conceding a bonus point, so we wanted to see if we could get to the 40th over. Liam Cooke and Tyson Newton played it like a test match scenario and batted really well to get us there.
"Pius won't be easy. We appeared to beat them easy last game ... but they're capable of scoring runs. They've got some good bats."