St Mary’s Nagle took the opportunity to regroup after a bye, outclassing Paynesville in round five of the Bairnsdale Cricket Association at Nagle College.
The Saints have struggled for consistency with bat and ball early in season 2025/26, but that was all forgotten last Saturday, recording their first win for the season by a massive eight wickets.
The loss was costly for the Gulls, who dropped out of the top four after an impressive start to the campaign, which has seen two wins and two losses.
Paynesville won the toss and elected to bat and were relatively well placed at 2/58 after 16 overs, with star batsmen, Nathan Schoultz, still to come after retiring early with back spasms.
But extraordinarily they lost 8/19 in just 63 balls to be all out for just 78.
Lachie McDonald top scored with 21, while Caleb Marsh (21) and Lachie Wilmott (11) were the other two players to get into double figures.
Daniel Hack (3/22) and Nathan Yarde (2/7) led the dismantling of the middle order, with skipper Ricky Tatnell also impressing with 3/14.
Randell Stewart was a welcome addition after sitting the early matches out, impressing in his opening spell taking 1/13.
There were some nervous moments early for Nagle with Jake Keown (2/17) removing Yarde and Jacob Hurry, the home side reeling at 2/20 without the mainstay of their line up, Brayden McCarrey, not in the line up.
But Joel Linford (10 from 30) and Tatnell (47 from 38) steadied the ship, the latter working into some solid form, his innings including four boundaries and a couple of maximums, as Nagle knocked off the total in just 16 overs.
Paynesville (sixth) will head east this week to play Lakes Entrance (seventh) at the Lakeside Oval, a must-win game for both sides, who have similar season form cards, and sit outside the top four, on the same amount of wins as Wy Yung (fourth).
Nagle will be hoping that its morale-boasting victory will put it in good stead when it clashes with Wy Yung at Bullumwal Road.
