Bathurst's under 18s side has taken out the two-day Western Zone Colts Carnival held in Dubbo over the weekend.
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The four-team carnival featured sides from Bathurst, Dubbo, Orange and a Chairman's XI who battled it out in hopes of being selected for the Western Zone Colts team to play at the Country Championships in Bathurst early next year.
Dubbo won their match against Orange on Saturday while Bathurst held on for a tight victory over the Chairman's XI to set up an intriguing final on Sunday.
Dubbo captain Tom Coady won the toss and chose to bat first at No.2 Oval but it was the visitors who got off to a strong start.
The Bathurst bowling unit kept things tight restricting Dubbo's batters early with Tom Lynch picking up Hugh Sienkiewicz for 19.
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Coady (9) was the next man to go and he would soon be joined on the sidelines by Koda Sissian (1) and Ted Murray (38).
Coming off 97 on Saturday, Anthony Atlee couldn't repeat his heroics as he was removed for 8.
Nate Ambler and Paddy Nelson combined late in the innings to help Dubbo reach 157 with Lynch the best of the bowlers taking 4/27 from six overs.
Bathurst's run chase got off to a shaky start when Lawson Shepherd removed both Hamish Siegert and Lynch before things got even worse for the visitors when Blake Kreuzberger chipped one to mid-wicket to leave them 3/33.
Cooper Brien and Angus Parsons showed a lot of patience against some quality bowling before the former was removed by Nelson for 28.
Parsons pushed on and found an ally in Fletcher Norris as the two consistently rotated the strike to put pressure on the Dubbo fielding unit.
Parsons passed 50 late in the match and was the hero hitting the winning runs with just two overs remaining to give Bathurst the title.
Following the match, Parsons admitted things got pretty tough in the middle.
"Yeah it was," he said.
"It was boiling out there towards the end.
"But we just held on."
Parsons was full of praise for his side after they held on for two tough victories over the weekend.
"We obviously haven't played a lot of cricket because of the rain," he said.
"Then two games straight away in the heat like this.
"It was good to get back out there.
"We'll be pretty sore."
In the other game on Sunday, the Chairman's XI were defeated by Orange thanks to four wickets from George Cumming.
Now the 42 players from the weekend will wait to hear from the Western Zone selectors, who will now have the tough job of picking a squad going forward towards the Country Championships next year.
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