Mount Beauty will be left ruing several key moments after their narrow defeat to contenders Bethanga last Saturday.

Four run-outs stunted the growth of the Power run chase, falling13 runs short of a win which would have rocketed them right back into the mix for finals.

After winning the toss and uncharacteristically electing to field, the Power collected two wickets within the opening eight powerplay overs and found themselves in front of the game, with Ethan Brown (1/29) and Craig Henderson (1/28) limiting the scoring.

The high was short-lived as Bethanga’s Luke Rafferty (60) and Brad Dalbosco (81) shared a 112-run partnership, before both innings’ were ended by some crafty Greg McLennan deliveries which sent the bails flying.

Shannon Wilson also took two late wickets, leaving the Power chasing a challenging, yet achievable, 204 runs for victory.

After the loss of Frank Iaria and Harry Metcalfe to single-figure scores, Will Betheras (60) and McLennan (39) combined and looked hard to stop for the team’s most productive partnership of 50.

Losing batters at regular intervals, with four players being dismissed between 10 and 20, stalled the race to the target score as Mount Beauty eventually ran out of overs, finishing with 9/190.

McLennan’s plans changed on arrival as the squad was greeted with foreign conditions.

“We fronted up to the greenest Bethanga pitch we had ever seen and thought there might be a bit in it if we bowled first,” McLennan said.

“The pendulum swung back and forth a bit through the innings, but we were pleased to restrict them to around 200 which was chaseable on a quick ground.

“We gained some momentum with solid contributions from our middle order, while Will [Betheras] held up his end and wound up only a couple of decent hits away from securing the win.

“While you never like losing, we produced a solid performance against one of the premiership favourites and we have significantly improved elements of our game in the last few matches.”

The Cricket Albury Wodonga District competition will pause this weekend, before Mount Beauty travels to Howlong in a must-win game for both sides if they have any hope of playing finals cricket this season.