Barnawartha Chiltern out to win first district final in seven years

The Miners haven't won since toppling Baranduda on March 7, 2015, to move through to the preliminary final.

Ironically, the visitors will again need to beat Baranduda to progress to next weekend's grand final.

The pair has split this season's games with Miners' captain Rhys Ritchie striking his second ton of the summer.

Ritchie has 399 runs at 36.

"I had a real crack over the off-season, normally I'm not fussed about cricket, but we put in a lot of work this year, we were doing the indoor nets at Birallee Park (Albury Wodonga Regional Cricket Hub)," he explained.

Barnawartha was scheduled to play Mount Beauty in last weekend's qualifying final, but all district matches were washed out.

It allowed Ritchie to play a practice football game for Wodonga, but cricket will be his focus over the next two weekends, should the Miners progress to the decider.

"I'll definitely play cricket, we have another practice game against 'Yarra' the week after (March 26)," he suggested.

"It was difficult at first (balancing the two sports), we moved cricket training to Wednesday and Fridays and that works in well with footy on Monday, Tuesday and Thursdays."

While Ritchie starred when the teams met last month, it was the Rangers' attack which won the battle in round five.

"Zach Leach is a good bowler, he's a left-arm quick and gets a bit of bounce as well, he's hard to get away," he offered.

Barnawartha Chiltern was forced to withdraw from district in 2017-18, due to a lack of numbers, and while it's always a fine effort to return under those circumstances, a grand final berth would be an outstanding achievement.

Meanwhile, Yackandandah will start strong favourites to meet the winner of the Rangers and Miners.

The Kangaroos are home to Mount Beauty.

The premiers are undefeated, racking up 11 straight wins, with the four washouts.

Mt Beauty posted an imposing 6-228 with captain Daniel Saville carrying his bat with an unbeaten 95.

However, the visitors ran down the target with an impressive seven wickets and four overs to spare, although Cooper Garoni (111 not out) has since moved to Adelaide through employment.

The fact that the Roos lost Garoni, who was last season's leading run-scorer and won the most valuable player award in the grand final, and are still unbeaten is testament to the club's depth.

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Saville again top-scored with 44 on February 12, but Yackandandah cruised to victory, losing only two wickets, as top run-scorers Jay Hillary (56no) and Cam Evans (49no) racked up a 97-run stand.

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