The weekend saw the club enter just its second Premier Cricket A Grade finals series with a semi final against Sturt at Sturt.
After winning the toss and batting the stingrays got off to a flyer with Nick Bowen and Josh Barrett putting on 98 for the first wicket. The fall of 3/0 put the game back in the balance, however a settling partnership between Justin Ifould and Dave Sboro steadied the ship. Another loss of 3/0 had the game delicately poised at tea with the score 7/163.
After tea, coach Andrew Staunton and skipper Shaun Tanner set about setting as big a score as they could. As the day one crowd started to ramp things up anyone could have been mistaken for thinking this was a stingrays home game.
The Staunton and Tanner partnership was 92 runs and in the blink of an eye the stingrays had taken the day one honours finishing 9/278.
Day two was always going to be a matter of taking ten wickets in order to secure a Grand Final berth. Sturt looked to play Cautiously and this brought Huw Stone into the match taking the only 2 wickets in the first session to leave the home side 2/60 at lunch.
It was the second session which was to be the major factor in the match with Tom Joraslafsky ripping through the middle order to claim 5 wickets. One of which saw a stunning first slip catch from Dave Sboro which sent the crowd into a frenzy. The win came just after tea to the delight of an even bigger crowd than the previous day. The song could be heard streets away as the stingrays booked a place in the Grand Final.
This weeks match is against Tea Tree Gully at Woodville oval. The more support we can get to the match the better. We hope to see you there.
