Seabrook has been riding on cloud nine all summer in the VTCA west A1 – until Saturday.
The Saints lost for the first time this season, going down by 12 runs in a thriller to finals’ contenders Williamstown Imperials at KC White Reserve.
It proved to be costly loss for the Saints, falling outside the home final positions for the first time, and down to third.
Saints’ skipper Leigh Edwards said it was not the end of the world for the Saints to finally taste defeat in the run-up to the finals and it would act as a wake-up call for his players.
“As much as you don’t want to lose, to be challenged and set a task, I think the boys will learn something from it because I don’t think we’ve been challenged that much this year,” he said. “It proves you’re not invincible going into finals.
“The top five teams could all make finals, and we’re not guaranteed a position yet at all.
“It might fire up the boys for the next couple of weeks to make sure they switch on because nothing is just going to easily come to us.”
For most of the game, Seabrook were in cruise control, seemingly headed for victory.
Set 163 to win, the Saints marched confidently to 4-143, with the foundation provided by Edwards (32) and Dilip Sarkhell (25).
The breaking up of the Andrew Hodgart (35) and Peter Fraczek (21) partnership, which had put on 49 for the fifth wicket, sparked a dramatic collapse, and the Saints lost their last six wickets for seven runs to be all out for 150.
“We were pretty much in control a lot of the day and then we lost a wicket when we had a good partnership going,” Edwards said.
“We needed 30 off about nine overs with six wickets in hand, and that partnership got broken up … it was always going to be hard for the new batsmen to come in and score on a low, slow wicket. We unfortunately had a collapse and that was it.”
Seabrook will travel to Gellibrand for a two-day game starting Saturday, hoping the last start loss was an aberration.
“It was our first loss for the year, so hopefully we bounce back next week,” Edwards said.
“Gellibrand are a couple of games out of the four, so it’s a little bit of a double-point game … if we can beat the teams trying to get into the four, we’ll hold our spot. So if we knock off Gellibrand and Willy Colts, we’ll be guaranteed finals.”
In north-west B1, Wyndhamvale found air from the relegation zone with a two-wicket win over Footscray ANA at Angliss Reserve.
Three wickets each to Falcons’ bowlers Jay Dolliver and Andrew Webb restricted ANA to 145.
Wyndhamvale passed the target with three balls to spare, led by 36 from Ryan Radford.
Point Cook’s finals chances suffered a blow after an 18-run loss to East Keilor at Overland Reserve. The Warriors were all out for 133 in their chase for Easts’ score of 7-151.
