South Otago High School
The 1st XI's Term 4 campaign came to a disappointing close last Saturday afternoon, with a resounding defeat by the King's HS 4th XI in Mosgiel.
Having lost the toss and being put in the field, the 1sts were hopeful of producing a bowling effort similar to the one from the Trinity match a week prior, before hopefully being able to mount a successful chase. Sadly, this is not the way the script went at all. Without getting into too many details, our bowlers - with the exception of Arnaldo Pelser (4-0-23-2) - were given the treatment by the opposition as they piled on 313/6 from their 40 overs. The fact that a large number of catches were dropped over the course of the innings certainly helped the opposition's cause.
With the chances of us being able to match a required run rate of close to eight, Coach Matsas was insistent that the boys use up as many of the 40 overs as possible to get some good batting practice under the belt. Things started really nicely for our boys, with Jethro Melville (32) and Arnaldo Pelser (18) putting on 64 for the first wicket. There was a degree of resistance in the middle and lower order, with Ruben Pelser, Will Clark and Johnston Phillips all soaking up at least 20 deliveries - yet none of them were able to kick on. In the end, King's won the match by 200 runs, consigning us to a record of one win and four losses for the term - only good enough for 5th place (out of 6) in the Dunedin Open Secondary Schools grade. A big thank you to Kay Wood for taking on the driver duties for the day!
With that being the final match of the term, it will be a case of coming back at the beginning of Term 1 next year and seeing who is keen to hopefully reverse the fortunes of the 1st XI. The school would like to wish Clayton Sheppard all the best, as he represents Otago Country at a tournament in Invercargill next month, and to all those boys playing club cricket over the holiday period. I would also like to acknowledge and thank Dave Matsas for coming into the coaching role this term and being such a consistently positive influence on the boys during a term where there have been some major changes in terms of personnel.
Elliott Carroll
TIC Boys' Cricket