St Stithians and St John’s brace for Schools SA20 showdown
Lions’ powerhouses, St Stithians and St John’s College are braced for what promises to be an epic showdown in the quarterfinals of the region’s Schools SA tournament at Wits University’s A ground on Friday afternoon.
St John’s will go into the contest keen to avenge a defeat in their last meeting with St Stithians, who pulled off a last-ball two-wicket victory in a nail-biting thriller to claim the bragging rights.
“The boys are motivated and eager to go. But we are much more focussed on our processes based on player development and team progression in terms of skill standards in all three disciplines,” Bongani Ntini, the St John’s coach, told SuperSport Schools Plus.
St John’s heads into the tie buoyed by a resounding eight-wicket victory over St Alban’s College in which Ntini’s outfit needed only 30.2 overs to chase down their opposition’s 192-run total.
Alec Loveland scored an outstanding and unbeaten 113 off 95 deliveries and was well-supported by Nkosana Sibiya, who chipped in with a 52-ball 53.
Earlier in the contest, Loveland bagged a brace of wickets, which helped restrict St Alban’s to a middling score. The 17-year-old has been an exceptional captain for the side, leading from the front both bat and ball.
St John’s has been performing well in multiple formats. They began their defence of the Johnny Waite title, which they won last year, with a series of wins, mostly recently by 55 runs over Northcliff High. In that tie, Darshik Lutchman and Sibiya scored brilliant half-centuries, which lifted their team to 184, before Ethan Robinson, with three wickets, helped St John’s restrict Northcliff to 129/7 in their 20 overs.
“We have played a few Johnny Waite fixtures, which we have used to pilot a few game plays and strategies in a pressured environment,” Ntini explained.
Their opposition plans to give as much as they get and more. Coach Lazarus Mokoena’s men are back from a Westvaal North-South T20 Tournament that produced mixed results. His charges were battle-tested by some of the country’s best batsmen and bowlers and gave as much as they received. They narrowly lost their last encounter of the tournament to Westville in a contest that was decided by the final delivery of the match.
Before that loss, they had demonstrated outstanding resilience by recovering from a morale-killing 113-run loss to Affies to smash 259/3 on their way to a comprehensive 130-run win over HS Centurion.
“The North-South tournament gave us the light as we played against good schools from around the country, and it was, definitely, good preparation for the Schools SA20 fixtures,” Mokoena said.
St Stithians hit the ground running after the North-South tournament and trounced St David’s Marist Inanda by nine wickets in their Johnny Waite encounter on Wednesday evening. Liam Mudenda led the way, cruising to an unbeaten 81 off 45 as his side chased down 162 runs for victory. Showcasing the lessons they had learned over the past week, St Stithians scorched to 163/1 in 14.2 overs.
The platform for the Saints’ victory had been set up by a disciplined bowling performance, led by Tahseen Hanslo, which held St David’s to 161/5 in 20 overs.
“Playing more games gives us good momentum [heading] into every game and we learn on the go,” Mokoena said.
The mouthwatering showdown between the powerhouses kicks off at 14:30.
