In-form Louth keep up pressure at the top with win over Market Rasen
Louth reeled off a fifth win in a row to keep up the pressure at the top of the Lincolnshire Premier League Championship North table on Saturday.
A 57 run home win over Market Rasen kept them in third place but with three games in hand on the teams above them.
Louth won the toss and elected to bat, and openers Alfie West and Michael Brown once again set an excellent hard-working tone in some difficult early conditions.
West (12), Brown (17) and, soon after Collinson, fell with Louth on 53 and despite the strong start, they needed a rebuild against a disciplined Rasen attack.
Harvey Lake continued to look untroubled at the crease but went for 15.
Tom Corden (11) then worked hard in partnership with Ethan Garner to see Louth through a difficult period with some grit and determination.
What followed was the best partnership of the day between Garner and Graham West of 58, taking Louth from 98-5 to 156-6 before West fell for a hard-working 12.
All the hard graft from Louth’s batters allowed Garner to take their innings on his young shoulders and push the score on quickly.
Ably supported by Byrne, Grayson and Adams, he took Louth to 194 before he finally fell for a top innings of 85 - an display ahead of his years.
Louth faced some adversity in their defence of the total, the ever consistent Kris Adams pulling up injured in his second over and Tom Corden injured in warm-ups.
However, Louth's Welsh of bowling came to the fore with the ever-present Pat Byrne bowling one of the best spells of his season and Lake ably taking over from Adams.
Byrne in particular caused the batters real problems in his 10 over spell of three wickets for just 24 runs, removing Rasen's top three batters with 39-3, thanks to very smart catches from Piran Grayson and G. West.
A revival of Rasen's chase was haunted by Collinson (1-12) taking a wicket, then it was over to young talented spinners Alfie West and Piran Grayson to try to close the game out for Louth, A. West bowling with accuracy to take three wickets for just 27 runs off his 10 overs in another excellent spell.
Grayson (1-22) took the wicket of the day, turning one past the bat to hit middle stump.
Brown took the ball to try to finish off the Rasen innings and succeeded, taking two wickets for 11 runs and Rasen all out for 137.
Player of the match was Ethan Garner for his match-winning 85.