Spalding Town’s under-15 side crashed out of the Lincs Cup on a hot Tuesday evening at Woodhall Spa.
Batting first in the semi-final, Spalding’s openers were kept quiet early on by accurate bowling from Spa’s pair of county opening bowlers.
Jordan Butcher (6) was caught and bowled by Alfie Lindsay and Patrick Harrington (6) was caught behind off Jack Cooke to leave the visitors on a precarious 12-2 after four overs.
Skipper Josh Lawrence joined Jon Manton and the pair began a careful rebuilding job which took the score to 36 in the tenth over, as Spa continued to bowl and field with discipline.
Lawrence (9) was eventually bowled by Tom Caswell, while Harry DeCamps (8) helped add a further 31 with Manton before being caught and bowled by Jamie Jenkins.
Worse was to follow when top scorer Manton (40) was eventually caught and bowled by Caswell to leave Town on a disappointing 77-5 in the 18th over.
Henry Wardman (1) was bowled attempting to break the shackles and Ed Lanning (11 not out) hit a couple of much-needed boundaries at the end, but the final score of 91-7 was well under par on a good batting track.
In reply, Spa reached 20 in the third over before skipper Lawrence trapped dangerman Nitin Joachim LBW for six. However, Henry Wilson (29) and Caswell (13) took the score to 40-1 in the eighth over before Spalding got their next breakthrough.
Harrington took a good low catch off Stef Gostic (1-23) to remove Caswell and then Wilson was given LBW to Manton (1-15) to give Spalding a feint sniff of victory at 66-3.
However, dropped catches and a mix-up which meant a run out opportunity was wasted ensured that Woodhall were able to coast to victory with seven wickets and four overs to spare.
