TOWNIES will play Kybybolite in the Naracoorte cricket grand final this Saturday after both won their semi-finals last weekend.
Minor premiers Townies won a thriller against stablemate Demons, while Kybybolite had a comfortable win over Lucindale in the other final.
At WORTLEY OVAL, hot favourites Townies batted first and started poorly with Paul Schroder out in the fifth over at 1/7.
A series of solid contributions then followed , with Kevin Marshall (24), Brad Redding (18), Brendon Emms (20) and Brodie Foster (36) all getting a start.
But Demons kept taking wickets to peg the Townies back, and at 8/122 after 37 overs, Townies were looking at an ordinary score. But Jason McClure (25no) and Jamie Stokie (7no) added 28 runs in the last three overs to boost them to a competitive score of 150 from their 40 overs.
The Demons bowlers did a great job, led by Michael Cappelluti 4/20, Anthony Munro 2/18 and Andrew Fitzgerald 1/21.
Demons started the run chase well and were 0/46 from 14 overs when the Redding brothers got involved.
Brad and Justin Redding took the first four wickets for Townies - including equal top scorer Munro for 28 - in quick time to reduce Demons to 4/62. Sam Henschke (28) and Fitzgerald (22) put on 46 runs to get their side going again, but Jamie Stokie took two wickets in an over to put the brakes on.
Veterans Fitzgerald and Cam Watson (13) tried to bat with the tail to get the Demons closer, but they needed 11 runs to run off the final over and could only manage six.
Townies got good service from their bowlers, with Stokie taking 3/24 and the Reddings sharing four wickets.
At KYBYBOLITE, Lucindale won the toss and batted first and got away a slow but sound start.
Openers Danny Lane (10) and Peter Morton (16) took the score to 29 in the 12th over when medium pacer Michael Pannell started an incisive spell.
He took a return catch to dismiss Lane, had Morton caught at first slip, then in his next over claimed the big scalp of Lucindale captain Shane McGurk, caught by a diving Dave Farley.
Lucindale had lost 3/13 to be 3/42 from 16 overs, all wickets falling to Pannell.
The Roos badly needed a partnership, but Brad Davies took two more wickets in a tight eight-over spell of inswingers to reduce them to 5/65.
Daniel McCarthy was hitting the ball well but started to run out of partners. Lee Curnow took three wickets in an over and then finished off the job by bowling the last two batsmen.
McCarthy was left stranded on 29 as Curnow 5/19, Pannell 3/21 and Davies 2/20 took the bowling honours. Kyby started the run chase shakily when Rowan Werchiwski was caught at second slip from the third ball of the innings, but Curnow and Pannell came together for a steadying stand.
They took the score safely to 58 in the 14th over before Kyby's nemesis McCarthy - who took six wickets against the Tigers last time they played at Kyby - trapped Curnow lbw for 30 and had key batsman Stuart Shepherd caught for a duck.
At 3/58, Kyby was faltering, but Pannell got support from Farley in a 28-run stand which saw the Tigers to the brink of victory.
McCarthy claimed two more wickets late, but Lucindale didn't have enough runs to defend and Kyby achieved victory for the loss of five wickets in the 27th over.
McCarthy took 4/24, but his effort was trumped by Pannell, who guided Kyby to victory with a classy unbeaten half century.
So the top two teams at the end of the minor round will do battle in the grand final at Naracoorte's Wortley Oval on Saturday. The game will start at 12.30pm and will be followed by trophy presentations and schnitzel teas for $10. The clubrooms bar will be open all day and spectators are more than welcome at the game and to stay for presentations and teas.