Uphill Castle’s promotion hopes were hit when they lost to league leaders Frome.

UPHILL Castle lost to league leaders Frome in a high-scoring game, which has all but ended any promotion hopes.

Asked to bat first, Uphill lost Luke Bliss with the score on five. This brought Ty Watson to the crease, who continued his form of the last month. Together with Andre Belcher, they took Uphill’s score to 199 before Belcher was out for an excellent 82, both being particularly harsh on anything short or over pitched.

With Belcher out in the 44th over, Watson carried on rotating the strike as Krish Kumar and Simon Cattermole accelerated the Uphill score to 273-3 off their allotted overs.

Watson finished on a magnificent 119 not out, bringing his run total in the last four innings to 358 for once out.

With such a large score, Uphill were confident they could defend this, but unfortunately this was short lived as all Uphill bowlers, apart from Marcus Bail (1-50), struggled to find any line length and rhythm.

Brief hope was raised when George Cox bowled Sanger for 11, but Dredge (123) and Bleakley (73) helped Frome to pass Uphill’s total in the 38th over for the loss of three wickets, with Uphill using eight bowlers who managed 26 wides between them.

Uphill’s man of the match for an excellent batting display went to Ty Watson.

THE seconds continued their good form with a seven-wicket win over Wedmore.

After winning the toss, Uphill had no hesitation in asking the visitors to bat first. The earlier heavy rain saw the game reduced to 35 overs each and Uphill’s opening bowlers were soon into their stride.

Pete Jobling (2-16) and Lewis Degalas (4-17) had Wedmore in trouble at 39-6 and there were also wickets for Matt Kearsey (2-27) and 15-year-old debutant Kieran Chapman (2-19), as Wedmore were all out for 106.

Uphill lost an early wicket, but Steve Worrall (45) and Tom Oultram (46) put on 80 for the second wicket. Although they both departed, Andy Llewellyn and Kearsey saw the team home tor a third straight maximum point victory.

Autosmart man of match Lewis Degalas.