Uphill Castle 2nd XI suffered a low-scoring defeat at Broadway & Horton.

UPHILL Castle 2nd XI travelled to Broadway & Horton on a lovely sunny day and came away with a three-wicket defeat.

Batting first, Uphill got off to a disastrous start and were 1-4 off six overs. The wicket was proving very lively and Uphill could not cope with the pace and bounce from the home attack.

Youngsters George Chapman (30) and Sam Matthews (30) gave some respect to the scoreline and with help from Andy Leech (12), the innings closed on 105.

Uphill needed to bowl and field well and they did this and also had Broadway 13-4 and then 48-7 with wickets from Pete Jobling (4-22) and Andy Leech (3-20), but Broadway’s Andy Mason (77 not out), with some big hitting, got the home side over the line.

Great character was shown by Uphill and hopefully they will take this into the next game against local rivals, Lympsham on Saturday.

Autosmart man of the match was Andy Leech.

THE Crusaders defeated top of the table Weston 4th XI by eight runs in an exciting encounter.

Batting first, Uphill were indebted to Ben Castle, who batted throughout to finish on 78 not out. He was well backed up by Pete Sloman (42) and Mark Patch, who hit 22 not out from just seven balls, as Uphill finished on 200-9.

In reply, Weston lost regularly and were always behind the run rate. Good contributions came from R Crocker (39 not out), D McNulty (22) and and G Tulip (18 not out).

Archit Singhal and Ash Doyle were the pick of the bowlers with 2-24 and 3-27 respectively. They were backed up by M Ogbourne (1-28), Ewan Kennedy (1-43) and Patch (1-56).