The weather gods were on Bacchus Marsh’s side for just long enough for the Bulls to win through to their first Ballarat Cricket Association grand final.
It looked for much of Sunday that the Bulls would be the hard luck story of the first week of finals, as heavy rain fell.
But the rain cleared for long enough for the Bulls to get on the park and get the 16 runs needed to upset Mt Clear.
Bulls captain-coach Sam Crea said there were so many emotions on the weekend.
“We have put in a lot of hard work into this season,” he said. “We didn’t think it would happen this quickly.
“We had full belief in what we are doing and I’m proud of everyone. We deserve to be there.”
A day is a long time in sport as was the case in the semi final.
Players were greeted with 30-plus degree temperatures on Saturday at Eastern Oval.
The Bulls decided to bowl knowing that rain was predicted for the following day.
With Mt Clear at 1-62, it seemed to be a bad decision.
“We didn’t think it would work out,” Crea said “But we stuck to the plan and we got a wicket and then took 9-35 to bowl them out for 97.
“We always knew that if we stuck to the process it would turn. We bowled a lot of dot balls and built the pressure.”
Josh Calvitto took 5-17 off 12 overs for the Bulls. Crea said Calvitto had bowled really well in trying conditions after being under an injury cloud during the week.
He said his brother Matt Crea, who took 2-4 off five overs, helped turn the game with two big wickets.
Crea said with the rain on the horizon they wanted to get the runs on day one to ensure a victory.
“We had to get 98 runs at four an over with 28 overs to be bowled,” he said. “We definitely wanted to get the runs.
“We lost the top four cheaply with low scores. We then had to think about things. We still wanted to get them when we were 5-40.”
The Bulls finished the day at 5-83. Crea said while they were on track for victory it was disappointing not to have ticked them off on Saturday.
“If it didn’t work out our way I was still proud of what we did,” he said.
The rain did fall in the morning but cleared to give both semi finals the chance to get on the ground.
A group of Bacchus Marsh supporters put in a lot of hard work over five or six overs to get the ground up to scratch.
Crea said he was so proud of the group of supporters.
The Bulls reached the runs without losing a wicket and were eventually bowled out for 156.
Crea was full of praise of Joshua McGrath (57) and Shanin Silva (37) who got the job done.
The Bulls will now face Wendouree in a four-day grand final the next two weekends.
Tara Murray
